As confirmed by the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, at a press conference The confirmed fatalities are all from the same sector, Villa Independencia, in the Achupallas sector. “There are other areas of the fire where we still do not have confirmed data. So far there are 19 people dead, of which 15 have been identified”, he assured.
Dramatic forest fire in Chile: state of emergency decreed
Due to the emergency, the president Chilean Gabriel Boricdecree “the state of emergency due to catastropheto have all the necessary resources to fight the fires,” according to the France Presse agency.
Shortly after midnight, the president called the Disaster Risk Management Committee (Cogrid) to offer the first assessments of damage and those affected by the flames.
According to authorities, firefighters and emergency services personnel are fighting against ten spotlights that affect, in addition to Valparaíso, the regions of O’Higgins and Maule, Biobío, La Araucanía and Los Lagos. They spread in a matter of hours due to the conditions of extreme heat.
Yvonne Guzmán, a 63-year-old woman who had to leave her home in Quilpué, a commune located about 90 kilometers northwest of Santiago, reported that “I have never seen anything like it“. In addition, he expressed: “This is very distressing because we evacuated the house but we cannot move forward, everyone is trying to get out and it is impossible to move.”
The woman said that almost six hours After evacuating under “a cloud of ash,” he managed to reach a relative’s house in Limache and described that “the route was full of fire spots.”
Forest fire in Chile: the shocking images
According to National Forestry Corporation (Conaf)only in Valparaíso, the fire has already consumed more than 7,000 hectares in a fireextreme behavior“At the moment, no reports of burned homes or the number of people evacuated were released.
In The Star and Christmasabout 200 kilometers southwest of Santiago, the fires burned 27 homeswhich forced the evacuation of several populated areas near the Pichilemu surf resort.
In the shocking images that went viral on social networks, the mountains and hills on fire at the end of route 6.
Since Wednesday, the temperatures reached 40 degrees in the central area of Chile, where Santiago is located, which triggered the fire risk.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Transportation decided yesterday to completely cut traffic for “reduced visibility due to smoke” on Route 68, which goes from Santiago to Valparaíso and leads to the wine valley of Casablanca and the resort of Viña del Mar.
Source: Ambito
