The president prepared the nation to prepare for more bad news.
Burnt houses in Vina del Mar/Reuters
Firefighters in central Chile are battling the raging wildfires, which have so far killed 112 people and destroyed entire neighborhoods, while President Gabriel Borich warned the country was facing a "tremendous tragedy."
According to authorities, hundreds of people are still missing, raising fears that the death toll will continue to climb as more bodies are found on the hills and houses destroyed by the fires.
The fires, which intensified on Friday, are now threatening the outskirts of Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, two beach towns popular with tourists.
Both have more than a million inhabitants, in the area west of the capital Santiago whose name was filled with thick smoke.
Aerial footage showed entire neighborhoods burned to the ground, as residents rummaged through the wreckage of burned homes, while the streets were littered with charred cars.
"The wind was terrible, the heat was hot. There was no respite. People were scattered everywhere," said Pedro Casada, a local contractor in the Valparaiso area, who was standing among the ruins of his burned house.
The authorities imposed a curfew starting at 21:00 in the epicenters of the disaster, and sent the army to help the firefighters stop the spread of the fires, while firefighting helicopters support them from the air.
"The whole of Chile suffers and mourns our dead," said President Borich, who announced two days of mourning, in a televised address to the nation.
"We are facing a very big tragedy," added Borich, who said that the nation must prepare for more bad news.
Deputy Interior Minister Manuel Monsalba said yesterday that there are 165 active fires throughout Chile, and that approximately 14,000 homes have been damaged in the Vina del Mar and Quilpoa areas alone.
Those who returned to their destroyed homes found them almost unrecognizable, and many lost all their possessions.
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More than 50 dead in the fires in Chile, the president: "The situation is very difficult"
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Burnt cars in Vina del Mar/Reuters
Although wildfires are not uncommon during the summer months in the Southern Hemisphere, this year's are particularly deadly.
They are the worst disaster in the country since the earthquake in 2010, in which about 500 people were killed.
Last year, amid record heat, 27 people died and more than 4,000 square kilometers went up in flames.
Borich promised to transfer rehabilitation funds to the worst-hit areas, many of which are popular with tourists. "We are together, all of us, fighting the emergency.
The priority is to save lives," he said.
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