The extremely high toll is likely to rise further.
At least 51 people have been killed in forest fires ravaging central and southern Chile, the country's deadliest tragedy of the last decade.
After a lull, the fires have resumed in the tourist region of Valparaiso where the famous seaside resort of Viña del Mar is located, whose beaches are popular during this period of the austral summer marked by scorching temperatures.
The number of victims continues to climb.
The forensic medicine service had already recorded 45 deaths, but “six other people died in medical establishments,” Manuel Monsalve, undersecretary at the Interior Ministry, said on Saturday.
“An unprecedented disaster”
From the La Moneda Palace in Santiago, President Gabriel Boric, who flew over the disaster by helicopter, announced that the number of victims would “increase” given the “dimension” that “the tragedy” took, which also devastated 43,000 ha of forest, particularly on the Pacific coast.
“This is an unprecedented disaster, the Valparaiso region has never experienced a situation of this magnitude,” said Macarena Ripamonti, mayor of Viña del Mar. Violent winds fanned the flames and a layer of black smoke covered the streets, where explosions followed one another, noted AFP journalists.
The authorities introduced a nighttime curfew and new calls for evacuations were made.
Around thirty outbreaks remained active out of a total of 92 fires recorded, and firefighters were trying to put them out using helicopters and planes.
VIDEO.
Chile battles more than 200 fires
“In the space of a minute, we lost everything,” said Luis Vial, a 69-year-old retiree, in tears, in front of the rubble of his house in the Villa Independencia neighborhood, where 19 people were killed. perished, on the hills of the tourist region of Valparaiso.
For hours, Rosana Avendaño, a 63-year-old kitchen helper, feared the worst for her husband, alone in their home in El Olivar, a neighborhood in Viña del Mar. “It was terrible because I couldn't go back” home, she told AFP.
When “the fire came,” “my husband was lying in bed and he started to feel the heat of the fire and he ran away,” she reported, relieved that her husband was able to escape the flames with their pet.
But “we lost everything,” she added.
A phenomenon accentuated by the heatwave
In addition to human losses, between 3,000 and 6,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by Chile's deadliest forest fires in the last decade, according to the undersecretary.
In the hills of Valparaiso, where the streets are littered with hundreds of charred cars, thousands of people discovered their destroyed homes on Saturday morning.
Dozens of homes were devastated in the seaside resort of Viña del Mar. AFP/RODRIGO ARANGUA AFP or licensors
Firefighters have been fighting tirelessly since Friday against dozens of homes in the regions of Valparaiso and O'Higgins in the center, but also Maule, Biobio, La Araucania and Los Lagos, in the South.
“The priority is the fires in the Valparaiso region, due to their proximity to urban areas,” Interior Minister Carolina Toha said.
These are areas located between 80 and 120 km northwest of Santiago, rich in wine, agricultural and forestry businesses.
President Boric declared a state of emergency on Friday in order to “have all the necessary means” in the face of the progression of the fires.
Also read: What is El Niño, this meteorological phenomenon which promises temperature records?
Since Wednesday, the temperature has been close to 40 degrees in central Chile and the capital Santiago.
“These episodes are more and more recurrent, which is why we see historic temperature records every year,” Pablo Lobos Stephani, in charge of fire protection at the Chilean channel, explained to CNN. Chilean national forestry office CONAF.
This heatwave resulting from the El Niño climatic phenomenon is currently affecting the southern cone of Latin America, in the middle of summer, causing forest fires worsened by global warming.
After Chile and Colombia, the heat wave threatens Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil in the coming days.