Days after devastating wildfires swept by means of Chile’s Pacific Coast, officers mentioned on Sunday that not less than 99 individuals had been killed and lots of remained lacking and warned that the variety of useless might rise sharply.
“That number is going to go up, we know it’s going to go up significantly,” President Gabriel Boric mentioned on Sunday, describing the fires within the Valparaíso area because the worst catastrophe within the nation since a cataclysmic earthquake in 2010 left greater than 400 individuals useless and displaced 1.5 million.
Thousands of properties had been destroyed within the fires, which swept by means of the coastal hills towards the resort of Viña del Mar beginning Friday, propelled by excessive winds.
The fires got here as many had been vacationing in Viña del Mar and roared by means of hillside settlements the place many older residents weren’t capable of escape.
Omar Castro Vázquez, whose house was destroyed within the settlement of El Olivar, mentioned a neighbor in his 80s had died within the hearth.
“It was more like a nuclear bomb than a fire,” mentioned Mr. Castro, 72. “There’s nothing left.”
The destruction in Valparaíso comes as dozens of fires are burning throughout central and southern Chile, amid what officers have mentioned are higher-than-normal temperatures for this time of 12 months.
Several different nations in South America have additionally struggled to comprise wildfires. In Colombia, fires erupted in a number of elements of the nation in current weeks, together with across the capital of Bogotá, amid a spell of dry climate.
Firefighters have additionally been battling blazes in Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina.
The cyclical local weather phenomenon referred to as El Niño has exacerbated droughts and excessive temperatures by means of elements of the continent, creating situations that specialists say are ripe for forest fires.
At daybreak on Sunday, bands of smoke clung to the hillsides above Viña del Mar. Along the freeway to the coast, banks of earth and bridges had been charred and tree stumps smoldered on the hillsides. The charred husks of automobiles littered the roads.
Early indicators level to flawed evacuation orders, which some residents mentioned might have contributed to the casualty rely.
Photographs posted on X, the social platform previously referred to as Twitter, confirmed lengthy traces of burned automobiles that appeared to have been engulfed in flames as individuals tried to go away, drawing comparisons to the botched evacuation throughout final 12 months’s hearth in Lahaina in Maui, Hawaii.
Mr. Castro Vázquez, of El Olivar, mentioned residents had fled to an area sq. when a cellphone alert got here by means of at about 6 p.m. on Friday. They weren’t given any directions past that about having to flee, he mentioned.
Black smoke plumed over a hill from a botanical gardens on the opposite aspect of the hill, he mentioned, and inside minutes their neighborhood was engulfed in tall orange flames.
Another resident, Andrés Calderón, 40, mentioned a number of individuals within the neighborhood hadn’t wished to go away their properties, fearing that thieves would burglarize them.
On Friday, he obtained the alert, jumped into his automobile and drove by means of smoke so thick he mentioned he needed to activate his headlights.
“It was like entering hell,” Mr. Calderón said. “I couldn’t see, the wind was blowing the car almost off the road. I just kept driving.”
On Sunday, the densely built area had been reduced to rubble. The roadsides were covered in corrugated metal sheets and debris pushed into piles, everything blackened and smelling of smoke.
Mr. Castro, a retired dockworker, said he had lost all of his clothes, possessions, documents and a chunk of his pension, which he had withdrawn and kept in cash.
Residents helped one another remove rubble and burned appliances from the shells of homes. Some wore motorbike gloves, others gardening gloves.
“I haven’t cried, I haven’t come to terms with it. I’m just focused on cleaning my house and my neighbor’s,” he said. “We’re broken.”
The mayor of Viña del Mar, Macarena Ripamonti, said at a news conference on Sunday morning that as of Saturday night, 372 people there were missing. She said officials would ensure that the bodies of those who died in the fires were removed as quickly as possible.
“They are our neighbors, they’re our family, they are our friends, they are people from Viña del Mar. That moves the population,” she said. “People are living through the worst situation.”
Natalie Alcoba contributed reporting from Buenos Aires.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/04/world/americas/chile-forest-fires.html
