Chile has decreed a night curfew in the areas most affected by the forest fires that have ravaged the center-south of the country for a week, a measure intended to prevent thefts and lootings, announced Thursday a military chief.
The curfew, which will come into effect Friday from midnight to five a.m., will be enforced in at least 20 towns in the Biobio and Araucania regions, as instructed by President Gabriel Boric, Rear Admiral Jorge said. Keitel, chief of defense of the Biobio region.
Twenty dead
In this region, eight municipalities are concerned, the 12 others being in the region of Araucania, according to General Rubén Castillo, military chief of the latter, a rich forest area in the south of the country in the grip of a conflict with Mapuche Indians.
The Chilean president announced on Wednesday afternoon that a curfew would be imposed in three regions of the country where a state of disaster has been declared due to the fires: Biobio, La Araucania and Nuble.
So far, no curfew has been announced for the latter.
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The flames, which have left at least 24 dead and some 2,180 injured for a week, have devastated more than 309,000 hectares in the regions of Nuble, Biobio, La Araucania and Maule, an area equivalent to a third of the American territory of the Caribbean of Porto Rico.
In one week, the wave of fires destroyed 1,180 homes and left 5,560 people homeless, according to the latest official report.
