Authorities were battling
another round of dangerous wildfires
along Chile's Pacific coast early Thursday, several weeks after fires killed more than 100 people.
So far two children have died and several homes have been burned.
The national disaster agency said late Wednesday that
several communities in the Valparaiso region
were being evacuated.
That part of the coast is
dotted with towns
that rise steeply from the ocean.
Fire crews
battled three fast-moving fires overnight
that were contained but still burning, Chilean Interior Minister Carolina Tohá Morales told reporters.
She said one challenge was that crews
couldn't send planes to drop water at night.
While the extent of the damage is unclear, he added, authorities estimated that between 15 and 40 homes were affected.
Two dead boys
The new outbreaks about 120 kilometers northwest of the capital left
two children, ages 12 and 16, dead
in a region that is still recovering from the deadliest fires in the country's history.
The two minors died in
an accident that affected a house
located in the sector known as Cerro Cordillera and, according to information from the Investigative Police (PDI) collected by the local press,
both were inside a bedroom when it began. the flames
and were unable to escape.
The authorities estimated that between 15 and 40 homes were affected.
photo: Reuters
The largest outbreak was recorded on the same hill and although it left no people dead, it affected at least 15 affected homes that could reach up to 40, according to the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, last night after a meeting of the Risk Management Committee of Disasters (Cogrid) to monitor the progress of the situation.
The authority maintained that it is being investigated whether this latest incident
was caused by a flare
and explained that the flames advanced quickly and
with great force
, which is why firefighters and night brigades from the National Forestry Corporation (Conaf) arrived at the scene.
Devastating wildfires swept through the region last month after breaking out in Viña del Mar, a coastal resort town about 80 miles by road northwest of Santiago, the capital.
They ravaged entire neighborhoods
, trapped people fleeing in cars, and destroyed thousands of homes.
President Gabriel Boric called those fires
the worst disaster to hit Chile
since a catastrophic earthquake in 2010 killed more than 400 people and displaced about 1.5 million more.
With information from EFE and The New York Times