In minutes everything around was an immense bonfire. “My neighbors were burned,” says Abraham Mardones, who miraculously managed to flee Villa Independencia, the epicenter of the deadliest forest fires in Chile’s memory. He says that he had the courage to cover the body of one of them.
Still shaken by the charred corpses he saw inside blackened skeletons of homes, this 24-year-old welder and university student laments his ruin.
«The fire consumed everything, memories, comforts, your home. I was left with what I was wearing, a single pair of overalls and some sneakers that they gave me. “I was only able to rescue my dog,” he told AFP.
Mardones lived with several relatives spread across four homes, one next to the other. Except for their lives, they lost everything.
As Friday afternoon fell, flames rushed from the hills onto the overcrowded hills of Viña del Mar and other areas of the Valparaíso region. The wind spread the fire quickly.
Mardones and other residents felt gusts of incandescent air.
So far there are 99 deaths, but the government expects the number to continue increasing in the worst tragedy to engulf Chile since the 2010 earthquake, followed by a tsunami, which left half a thousand dead.
In Villa Independencia alone, in Viña del Mar, there were at least 19 deaths, according to authorities.
Around 12,000 people live on this hill. Several sectors were completely destroyed. The smell of ashes and burning plastic floated in the mournful atmosphere.
It is estimated that there are between 3,000 and 6,000 homes affected.
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