On Monday, foreign firefighters and experts, along with their Chilean counterparts, began fighting wildfires raging in the central South American country that have killed at least 26 people and injured hundreds in less than a week. thousand houses.

According to the latest report from the National Agency for Disaster Prevention and Response (SENAPRED), the fires that broke out last Thursday they claimed the lives of 26 people, injured 1,260 more and left 3,000 homeless. At least 1159 houses were completely destroyed by fire.

The fires, which are currently raging over an area of ​​2,700,000 hectares, an area larger than the whole of Luxembourg, fear further spread after being relatively stagnant today due to the intense heat in the Maule and Nieble regions. .

“Within five days, an area burned out equal to what usually burns out in two years of fires,” Interior Minister Carolina Toa summed up at a press conference.

This summer in the summer hemisphere in Chile record temperatures are recorded, in some places exceeding 40 ° Celsius.

“We are trying to provide the entire population with water and basic food,” Carmen Cuevas, a volunteer in one of the hardest-hit towns of Santa Juan in the Biobio region, 500 kilometers south of the capital Santiago, told AFP. she was shocked at the sight of the city “turned to ashes”.

About 5,600 firefighters and workers from the National Forest Company (CONAF) fought 69 of the 280 ongoing fires yesterday. International aid began to arrive, notably the American DC-10 “Ten Tanker” aircraft, capable of dropping 36,000 liters of water.

Chile’s state television broadcast live the arrival of a huge American plane and its takeoff from an airport in southern Chile.

Help from America and Europe

On Sunday evening, another A330-200 arrived from Spain with 50 people on board, including six wildfire specialists, 38 emergency response troops and a team of six UAV operators.

Argentina is participating in the international effort by sending ten firefighters and five all-terrain vehicles equipped with special equipment. Fifty more firefighters and a Chinook helicopter are expected.

A mission of 150 wildfire specialists, civilian and military, arrived from Mexico.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Twitter that “the people of Chile can count on the support of France in the fight against this scourge.”

Chile’s foreign ministry said aid had also arrived from Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay and Venezuela.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he was sending a plane with materials and experts. “The climate crisis is burning Chile,” he commented on Twitter.

The Portuguese government announced on Monday that it intends to send 140 soldiers.

The government of President Gabriel Boric has declared a state of disaster in several areas in the central and southern parts of the country, both in the countryside and in the forests, where scenes of complete devastation have become more frequent, crops and houses have turned into ruins, and animal corpses are scattered everywhere. and they lost everything.

Source: RES-IPE