The Chilean Government has reported today that the number of people who have lost their lives in the serious fires that are affecting the center and south of the country amounts to 22 and that there are also at least another 16 injured in a “critical” state.
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“At this moment we have a very hard, very painful balance of 22 people who have died,” said the Chilean Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, who has warned that “the numbers are changing every minute” and that the situation is “very complex ”.
The most affected regions are Ñuble, Biobío and La Araucanía, areas of intense agricultural and forestry activity located 400, 500 and 700 kilometers south of the capital, respectively, and where the Government has decreed the State of Constitutional Exception of Catastrophe, which allows the necessary measures to be taken for the prompt restoration of normality.
Extraordinary reasons that affect the safety of people such as #Wildfiresearthquakes, volcanic eruptions or tsunamis, allow a State of Catastrophe to be declared. pic.twitter.com/AHBCi6XREO
– Government of Chile (@GobiernodeChile) February 3, 2023
According to the latest report from the National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (SENAPRED) of the Ministry of the Interior, more than 45,000 hectares have been destroyed and there are currently 251 active fires throughout the country, of which 80 are in combat.
In addition, about 1,500 people are sheltering in some thirty shelters and there are 554 injured, of which at least 16 are in a “very serious” condition, Tohá has detailed.
“In the last week, the equivalent of the surface that burns in a full normal year has been burned,” said the minister. The fires coincide with a long drought that has lasted for more than 13 years and with an unprecedented heat wave in the south, with temperatures that can reach 40 degrees Celsius in southern areas in the next few hours.
The Meteorological Directorate has reported this Saturday that the heat wave will last until next Wednesday and will affect seven of the 16 regions of the country.
The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, who suspended his vacation to deal with the crisis, has confirmed this Saturday that he has requested international help from countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and Spain to deal with the crisis and that he has spoken with his Argentine counterpart, Alberto Fernández , who has assured him of sending brigade members and machinery.
Fernández has shared a message on his social networks appealing for solidarity between Latin American regions and has shown his support for the Chilean people: “We will always be there to accompany you and help you overcome difficult times, like this one.”
Latin American solidarity is our guide to strengthen ourselves. We will always be there to accompany you and help you overcome difficult times like this. We are a region of brother towns ???????????????? https://t.co/yJzIzOxSho
– Alberto Fernandez (@alferdez) February 4, 2023
Boric, in joint statements at dawn on Saturday together with the governor of the Ñuble region, Óscar Crisóstomo, guaranteed “that people are not going to be left alone.” “We are going to put all the resources that are necessary to be able to carry out the reconstruction once we have a cadastre,” he added. The president also asked for obedience to the authorities and respect “for the people who are fighting the emergency.”
The images are reminiscent of the wave of fires that hit southern Chile in 2017, the most serious to date and in which a dozen people died.