More than 50 dead in forest fires in Chile More than 96 percent: Biden wins primaries in South Carolina

The death toll from the intense forest fires in Chile has risen to at least 56, Valparaíso Governor Rodrigo Mundaca said on Sunday. President Gabriel Boric traveled to the disaster area and visited the injured in the hospital in the city of Viña del Mar. “The most important thing now is to save lives and put out the fires,” he said.

The number of deaths and injuries is expected to rise significantly, Interior Minister Carolina Tohá said. “We have a lot of preliminary and not yet officially confirmed information that suggests we will reach much higher numbers.” More than 300 people were still missing on Sunday.

In view of the expected number of victims, the Minister of the Interior spoke of what was probably the worst emergency in the South American country since the major earthquake in 2010. At that time, more than 520 people were killed.

The forestry authority registered 159 fires across the country on Sunday, covering a total area of ​​almost 28,000 hectares. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed, more than 3,000 in the Valparaíso region alone, Tohá said. The region west of the capital Santiago, where the government says about 1.8 million people live, is hardest hit by the fires. A fire near the coastal towns of Valparaíso and Viña del Mar has spread to an area of ​​about 9,600 hectares, it is said.

On Friday, President Gabriel Boric declared a state of emergency in the affected areas due to the disaster in order to mobilize all necessary resources. He has now ordered the Ministry of Defense to deploy more military units. “Our priority is to save lives,” Boric said on Saturday. He announced that he wanted to travel to Valparaíso himself on Sunday.

An investigation is underway to determine whether the fires may have been deliberately set, Boric said. He announced an investigation, “although it is difficult to imagine who caused such a tragedy and so much pain.” According to the Minister of the Interior, the government had “serious information” about the Valparaí fire, indicating that it was deliberately set. Further south, in the Maule region, a person was arrested for causing a fire while working with a welding machine.

Serious forest fires occur again and again in Chile in the southern hemisphere in the summer. Last year, more than 425,000 hectares of land burned in central and southern Chile – about eight times the area of ​​Lake Constance. At least 26 people were killed. (dabbing/sda/dpa)