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Firefighters are wrestling with huge forest fires that broke out in central Chile on Friday. Officials have extended curfews in cities most heavily affected by the blazes and said the death toll has increased to 112 killed.
The fires have been burning with the highest intensity around the city of Viña del Mar, where a botanical garden founded in 1931 was destroyed by the flames. At least 1,600 people have been left without homes.
A person holds a flag that reads 'against' as voters take part in a referendum on a new Chilean constitution, in Santiago, Chile
Flames and smoke on the eastern edge of the city have trapped some people in their homes. Officials said 200 people have been reported missing in Viña del Mar and the surrounding area. The city of 300,000 people is a popular beach resort.
Late on Sunday, Chile's forensic medicine service updated the confirmed death toll to 112 people.
Drone footage filmed by Reuters in Vina del Mar area showed entire neighbourhoods scorched, with residents rummaging through husks of burnt-out houses where corrugated iron roofs have collapsed. On the streets, singed cars littered the roads.
Rodrigo Mundaca, the governor of the Valparaíso region, said on Sunday he believed that some of the fires could have been intentionally caused, replicating a theory that had also been mentioned on Saturday by the president, Gabriel Boric.
"These fires began in four points that lit up simultaneously," Mundaca said. "As authorities, we will have to work rigorously to find who is responsible."
The fires around Viña del Mar began in mountainous forested areas that are hard to reach. But they have moved into densely populated neighbourhoods on the city's periphery despite efforts by Chilean authorities to slow down the flames.
On Saturday, Boric said unusually high temperatures, low humidity and high wind speeds were making it difficult to control the wildfires in central Chile, which have already burned through 8,000 hectares of forest and urban areas.
Perhaps up to 3 thousand homes destroyed while over a hundred cell towers were suspiciously destroyed/disabled very early on along with a power cut for most of Viña leaving many without vital communication to end up trapped in their homes or a traffic jam to burn to death. The official death toll is 19 but the speed of the fire and eyewitness accounts of those who survived fire swept neighborhoods indicate a lot more will be uncovered.
This comes days after the corrupt gov was forced to revoke lifetime pensions to the same street criminal foot-soldiers of the planned revolutionary insurrection that started on October 18, 2019 where 25 Metro stations were also simultaneously burned and more damaged.