2024-02-08 19:00:50
Firefighters managed to control the fire in Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, where the hills were devastated for five days by the fires that affected this region of the Chilean Pacific, claiming the lives of 131 people so far and consuming more than 29,000 hectares.
Under the high temperatures of the southern summer, 1,930 firefighters extinguished the multiple heat sources that threatened the tourist city of Viña del Mar and the port of Valparaíso since Friday, located 120 kilometers northwest of Santiago.
“The forest emergency that began on February 2 is considered to have been overcome,” the Viña del Mar Firefighters emergency department indicated this Wednesday, according to the AFP news agency.
However, in the hills, those affected have settled in tents and organized nightly patrols amid suspicions that the fires have been intentionally set.
“While my family is in a shelter, I chose to stay here. The lower part still has trees and we are seeing a lot of people going up and down there,” said Miguel Ángel Reto, a 42-year-old Peruvian worker who works in construction. .
Along with Chileans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Ecuadorians, Reto settled irregularly in the hills of Viña del Mar in an area known as the United Nations.
The fires devastated their wooden buildings, but the inhabitants returned to collect debris, with the idea of rebuilding their homes.
“There is still a lot to do, this is just beginning,” warned Katherine Murillo, a 31-year-old Ecuadorian housewife, who with her family set up a tent to take care of the land where they will build a new home at the United Nations.
The National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred) reported that the fire affected 6,000 homes, although data released by AFP indicate that there were 15,000.
The flames consumed 29,115 hectares in the central regions of the country, Valparaíso, Metropolitana, O’Higgins, as well as in the south, in Maule, La Araucanía and Los Lagos.
Regarding suspicions of intentionality, only Navy personnel carry out sporadic patrols in some points of Viña del Mar, where the night curfew has been in effect since last Friday.
The government of President Gabriel Boric hinted from the beginning at the possibility that criminal hands were behind the deadly fires.
During a visit to Viña del Mar on Tuesday, the president himself issued a warning: “There are people who are trying to start fires, we are going to find those miserable people and we are going to put them behind bars.”
The authorities have not yet determined responsibility for these fires, which represent the worst tragedy in Chile since the 2010 earthquake and tsunami, when more than half a thousand people died.
Suspicions that it could have been a deliberate action are based on the fact that there were several simultaneous fire outbreaks.
“More than ever, I am convinced that these fires were absolutely intentional. Five fire outbreaks at the same time, that is not natural,” said Alejandro Peirano, director of the Viña del Mar Natural Botanical Garden, which was seriously affected by the flames. .
Meanwhile, amid the mourning for the tragic death of former President Sebastián Piñera on Tuesday in a helicopter accident, the Government has begun a new phase in managing the crisis due to the fires.
“We are in a different stage of the emergency, we have already begun the land rehabilitation phase and this also allows us to expedite the arrival of help,” said the presidential delegate for Valparaíso, Sofia Gonzalez.
