At least 23 people have died in hundreds of forest fires whipped up amid a blistering heat wave in Chile, a senior government official said on Saturday night.
“We want to mourn the passing of 23 persons,” Chilean Deputy Minister of the Interior Manuel Monsalve said, adding that 979 people were injured in the fires.
Monsalve said 232 wildfires were still active on Saturday, including 16 that began earlier in the day.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The administration of Chilean President Gabriel Boric extended a state of disaster to include the southern region of Araucania.
The regions of Nuble and Biobio were already under a disaster designation.
The move allows Boric to mobilize the military to help battle the fires as the death toll continued to rise.
Photo: AFP / CHILEAN PRESIDENCY
Temperatures soared to 40°C, hindering efforts to contain the fires, many of which raged out of control.
Boric, who suspended a holiday to rush to the city of Concepcion, 510km south of the capital, Santiago, wrote on Twitter that he would keep working “to confront the forest fires and to help families.”
Boric said Argentina had offered to send firefighters and equipment.
Brazil, Uruguay, Mexico and Spain have also offered help, Chilean Minister of the Interior Carolina Toha said.
“We are becoming one of the [nations] most vulnerable to fires, fundamentally due to the evolution of climate change,” Toha said.
Fire conditions that would have seemed extreme just three years ago are turning more common by the year, she said.
Ten people died in the town of Santa Juana, near Concepcion, authorities said earlier.
The fires destroyed at least 88 homes and swept through 47,000 hectares of forest, officials said.
Santa Juana Mayor Ana Albornoz said that the fires had hit hard in the township because “the terrain is very rugged and the roads are bad.”
“Our population is very small, with one person living atop one hill and another on another hill, while the urban area is overcrowded,” she said.
Those who died included two crew members of a helicopter fighting fires who were killed in a crash on Friday, officials said.
One additional firefighter died and at least eight have been injured while battling the blazes, they added.
In all, about 2,300 firefighters and 75 aircraft have been deployed in the region.
The heat wave has created fears of a repeat of 2017, when widespread fires in the same region left 11 people dead and destroyed 1,500 homes.
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