For the third day, Chile is fighting the deadliest forest fires in its recent history, with several points burning in the Valparaíso region,
while the death toll already reaches 100 people
and tends to grow due to the devastation of entire neighborhoods, according to survivors.
Dozens of videos show heartbreaking scenes of devastation in various towns in the country.
In that commune, the AFP team has recorded
sectors of charred houses and cars
, where on Friday thousands of residents were trapped for hours in traffic, trying to escape under a rain of forest embers.
In the city of Viña del Mar, also in the central region of Valparaíso, victims discover themselves homeless and look for neighbors and pets among streets full of burned debris.
"There was not a single house left here
," laments Lilián Rojas, a 67-year-old retiree who lived near the Botanical Garden of Viña del Mar, which disappeared due to the fire, telling AFP among the rubble and ashes of the neighborhood.
Viña del Mar, 120 km northwest of Santiago,
has been one of the areas hardest hit
by the worst forest fires that Chile has experienced in its recent history.
"It is the biggest tragedy we have had since the 2010 earthquake," said Boric, referring to the 8.8 magnitude earthquake, which was followed by a tsunami, which occurred on February 27, 2010 and left more than 500 dead. .
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The fire destroyed the home he made with his own hands over the years.
To describe the aggressiveness and speed with which the fires spread on Friday afternoon over populated areas, Rojas said that the fire surprised them in a matter of minutes.
They saw smoke from a distant light, he went "for a while" to his room to watch television and when he came out "to look outside, people were already running," he recalled.
"I left my house, closed the door and left. I
didn't know any more because I went to the center of Viña del Mar," described Rojas, showing her pink dress to point out: "This is now the only thing I have."
"Time stopped, I don't know if it was at 4 or 5 in the afternoon (...) We have a forestry brigade next door, we have a water tap, they never used it. Firefighters did not arrive until it was consumed. everything. Not a single house was left," the retiree, who lives with a pension of 206,000 pesos, about 228 dollars a month, summed up the horror.
The conditions
The weather conditions of the last few hours seem to give a truce "with a coastal trough that allows the fire to cool," said the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, referring to a typical phenomenon on the Pacific coast, which produces a lot of cloudiness, high humidity and therefore lower temperatures.
Video
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"Conditions today are more conducive
to the tasks of supporting victims and containing fires," said the minister.
On the third day of the fire crisis, the focus in Las Tablas, the most important in the surroundings of Valparaíso, is still active and "covers a perimeter of 80 km," said Tohá.
Throughout the region, known for its tourist beaches and wine production, 17 fire brigades, 1,300 soldiers and civilian volunteers
are deployed
to help fight the flames, but also the victims who lost everything.
The heartbreaking testimonies of victims who lost their homes and families,
as well as the images of flames covering populated hills in Viña del Mar, Valparaíso region, led Pope Francis to refer to this Chilean catastrophe.
Leaning out of the window of the apostolic palace, the pontiff asked to pray
"for the dead and injured in the devastating fires in Chile"
, after the Sunday angelus in St. Peter's Square.
The High Representative of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, offered support to Chile as a result of this new episode of "devastating fires with numerous fatalities, reminding us of the ravages of drought and climate," he indicated in a message.
In the last decade, episodes of mega forest fires have multiplied
in Chile related to extreme weather, high temperatures, a prolonged drought, construction of homes in unlicensed sites and a large percentage due to human negligence.
A heat wave with maximum temperatures is overwhelming the Southern American Cone these days, where the natural climate phenomenon of El Niño is exacerbated by global warming caused by human activity, according to specialists.
Source AFP and Clarín
P.B.