The official toll from forest fires raging in central Chile doubled Sunday to at least 99, with hundreds of people missing, authorities said.
Of the 99 dead, 32 bodies had been identified, according to Chile’s state coroner. Most of them died in Chile’s Valparaiso region, a seaside city popular with tourists and retirees. Drone footage from Agence France-Presse showed what looked to be an endless wasteland of smoking, charred ruins that had once been homes. More than a thousand residences were damaged, authorities said.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric on Saturday declared a regional state of emergency as at least 92 forest fires raged. He later announced a two-day mourning period starting Monday, even as he warned the country to brace for more.
“It is Chile as a whole that suffers and mourns our dead,” Boric said in a televised speech to the nation, according to Reuters. “We are facing a tragedy of very great magnitude.”
By Sunday, there were 161 active fires across the country, Álvaro Hormazábal, director of the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service, told CNN Chile. Of those, 102 were under control, 40 were still being battled and 19 were under observation.
About 1,400 firefighters were deployed Sunday, BBC News reported, citing Interior Minister Carolina Toha. Military personnel were also on hand, and the cause of the fires was being investigated. There was even the possibility that at least some of them had been intentionally set.
“These fires began in four points that lit up simultaneously,” the Valparaíso region’s Governor, Rodrigo Mundaca told AFP. “As authorities, we will have to work rigorously to find who is responsible.”
The inferno comes amid a heat wave that has temperatures soaring to 104 degrees Fahrenheit, AFP noted.
The death toll was set to “increase significantly,” Boric said, as responders made their way through neighborhoods that had been gutted. He compared the devastation to the 2010 earthquake and tsunami that killed 500 people, he said.
The national disaster service SENAPRED said Sunday that flames had scorched 64,000 acres, or about 100 square miles. Finance Minister Mario Marcel estimated damages would be in the “hundreds of millions of dollars” in the Valparaiso region alone.
With News Wire Services
