Nearing midnight and from Onemi’s headquarters, the undersecretary of the interior, Manuel MonsalveHe referenced to the voracious fire that consumes Viña del Mar, noting that a state of catastrophe has been decreed on the instructions of President Boric. We remind you that, until the early hours of this Friday, the flames had destroyed more than 500 homes and, due to the accident, two people lost their lives.
The authority addressed those affected, stating that “We are deeply sorry for the emergency and the pain you are going through today, and that obviously the government is not only concerned, it is committed and will take all the decisions to be able to control the emergency and be able to come to the aid of the inhabitants of the municipality of Viña del Mar”.
“The President of the Republic has arranged to declare the State of Constitutional Exception of Catastrophe for Public Calamity. The decree is being drafted, and this implies that a head of national defense will be appointed who will have powers of limitation of constitutional rights, possibly assembly and transfer, but also has the power to take control and requisition all assets that are held to supervise to face the emergencyMonsalve said.
And he added that “this is a fire whose origin is to be investigated, it is not yet possible to clearly say what its origin is. It is a fire that broke out at 18:38, and six minutes later Chilean firefighters were on site, and a helicopter was also present. I mean, there was a very quick response “.
“Unfortunately, despite this rapid response, due to the location of this fire, the weather conditions, the wind, the presence of combustible material, it is a very aggressively and rapidly spreading fire.”indicated.
“As far as resources are concerned, during today’s day they were allocated to fire and emergency control 9 helicopters, one heavy and some light, 12 Conaf brigades that went to put out the fire, of these two fast brigades. I also want to point out that there 109 fire brigade vehicles involved in this emergency and 870 volunteers, plus 8 displaced vehicles from the Metropolitan Region“said the undersecretary.
“I spoke in these hours with General Enrique Monrás, director general of order and security of the carabineros, who has moved and should already be in the Valparaíso region. The displacement of 5 water cannons, each with a capacity of 15,000 litres, was also arranged. Besides that, there were 4 night brigades working, 7 tanker planes, 1 coordination plane, 7 tanker trucks and heavy machinery working to control the fire”, he mentioned.
