VINA DEL MAR: Helicopters dumped tons of water on wildfires raging on across central Chile on Monday, as emergency crews told Reuters they were still finding bodies buried in the wreckage three days after the blazes took hold.
The official death count from Chile’s worst natural disaster in years stood at 112 as of Sunday night and was expected to climb as residents, firefighters and military raced to clear rubble.
Forest fires gathered momentum on Friday and spread to residential areas in the coastal cities of Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar, sending out sparks and fireballs that consumed houses within minutes.
“It’s like a war zone, as if a bomb went off,” said Jacqueline Atenas, 63, who fled her home in nearby Villa Independencia on Friday and returned to the wreckage on Monday carrying a small pink backpack, the only thing she had been able to save. “It burned like someone was throwing gasoline on the houses. I don’t understand what happened… There was a lot of wind, a lot of wind and big balls of fire that would fly by.”
Down the street, Luis Parra said he was barely able to escape with his wife and grandchildren. By the time he saw sparks reaching his house, the power had gone out and they couldn’t open their gate to escape by car. They managed to jump in a friend’s car and get away. But his sister and his blind father died. Their bodies were found a block from their home. “We never thought this could happen,” Parra said. –Agencies
