The center of Viña del Mar, a tourist destination par excellence in Chile, looks like a deserted city at six in the afternoon on a summer day. The curfew decreed by the Government of Gabriel Boric in one of the areas most affected by the deadliest fires of the last decade – 122 have died, according to the latest report – kept visitors and tenants in their homes. At night, only a few homeless people can be seen, but above all police cars ensuring that the movement restriction is complied with to facilitate aid and avoid new outbreaks of fire.
In the hills of the so-called garden city the situation is different. Neighbors from Villa Rukan, Villa Dulce or Palto Miraflores are organizing in the streets to prevent looting or having their land taken over, and the fear of new outbreaks of fire persists, since the suspicion that the forest fires were intentional, As the authorities have pointed out, it has not dissipated. The tragedy, Boric said, is the largest that Chile has experienced since the great earthquake of February 27, 2010, which left hundreds of victims due to the earthquake and a tsunami. “I say this so that we are able to measure the pain and magnitude of what we are experiencing,” he said. For this reason, he has declared two days of national mourning starting this Monday.
About 40 kilometers south of Viña del Mar the smoke and the smell of burnt earth sting the eyes and dry the throat. The vestiges of the voracious forest fire at the height of Peñuelas, where you can still see some outbreaks – small, apparently controlled by the improvement in climatic conditions – mark the entrance to the Valparaíso region, located about 120 kilometers from Santiago. Those affected demand the presence of the military who, by order of President Boric, have been deployed in the most affected territories, but many have not yet seen them. They wait with anguish for the third night since the flames devastated thousands of homes and forested hectares.
Boric, who visited the region this Sunday, announced that only the Legal Medical Service (SML) – the State agency in charge of identifications – will be the one to report on the number of deaths. Chile awaits with pain each of the reports, which has been increasing the number of victims during the day: if shortly before 2:00 p.m. there were 64 fatalities, nine hours later, at 11:00 p.m., the death toll rose to 112 . On Monday morning the count rose to 122, with the announcement of the delivery of the first bodies.
From the region of the catastrophe, the Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve, has been in charge of reporting the 112 fatalities, of which only 32 have been identified, and that 38 autopsies have been performed by the SML, which has been reinforced with forensic doctors from all over the country in the face of the emergency. In addition, there are 10 bodies that are in condition to be delivered to their families. Faced with the tragedy, Boric announced in the afternoon that the number of fatalities “will grow significantly,” and he has done so so that society prepares for the worst.
The number of affected homes has been increasing. Monsalve, the undersecretary, has reported that there is a projection of up to 12,000 in Viña del Mar – about 31,000 people –, and 2,000 in Quilpué – more than 7,000 people.
The forest fires in Chile have hit the central-southern area of the country, but especially the Valparaíso region. In Viña del Mar it has not yet been possible, due to the intensity of the damage, to collect, quantify or identify all the human remains that died in the flames since Friday night: many victims were hit by the fire while fleeing. Therefore, the priority for the Government, said the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, has been to save lives and put out the fire.
Two tasks have been added to this: reaching the victims with aid and counting the total number of deaths. “Hopefully we can lift the bodies of most of the victims today,” Tohá said on Sunday, adding that this work was very complex to carry out on Saturday due to the difficulty of access to the places still ravaged by the flames.
The mayor of Viña del Mar, Macarena Ripamonti, reported that the number of missing people reaches 190, but the information has not been confirmed by the central power authorities who, grouped in the Disaster Risk Management Committee (Cogrid), They carry out several balances each day.
In the middle of summer, the cities of Viña del Mar, Quilpué, Limache and Villa Alemana have had to abide by curfews since Friday night, a measure that will possibly remain in place for several days, Boric reported. The authorities seek to help with emergency work, facilitate evacuations when necessary and, incidentally, protect what little and nothing that was left standing from theft. In these hours, among ashes and smoke, there are those who have robbed the victims of the fires.
But it is not only pain that Chile faces. Suspicion is also growing that the fires have been intentional, which is why the Prosecutor's Office has already initiated an investigation in the Las Tablas sector, in Pueñuelas, where the fire started on Friday. President Boric has said that he has instructed to collect “all the information.” “It is difficult to think that there could be such miserable and heartless people capable of causing so much death and pain. But if these people exist, we are going to look for them, we are going to find them and they will have to face not only the rejection of the entire society, but also the full weight of the law.”
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