Chile: Floods leave at least two dead – 06/26/2023 – World

The worst floods in almost 30 years in Chile killed at least two people and left more than 10,000 stranded, according to the latest update from local authorities, on Sunday night (25). Rescue teams are looking for three missing people in the center and south of the country.

The volume of rains, which started last Thursday (22), destroyed 54 houses and damaged almost 3,000, taking 2,000 people to shelters. Precipitation was concentrated in the Andes Mountains, where there is usually snow, causing rapid erosion and increased river flow.

Some of the affected regions had already been damaged by massive forest fires that destroyed 439,000 hectares and left 26 people dead over the summer. Now, the tragedy has begun with the rise in the level of the main rivers in the region of the capital, Santiago: the Mapocho and the Maipo.

Until recently, the first was just a trickle of water that ran 30 km from the city, due to the severe drought that hit central Chile ten years ago. The river even recorded a water deficit of 89% compared to its historical average, according to official estimates. But after a rainfall of 150 mm in just a few hours, the riverbed grew and the water overflowed in several sectors.

“At the foot of the mountain range, it rained in a day and a half as much as it did last year in Santiago,” said the governor of the city’s metropolitan area, Claudio Orrego, in a report.

The flow of the Maipo, the main river in the southern region of the capital, has increased tenfold in the last few hours. “We were incredulous, we didn’t think it was going to be so much,” Loreto Ochoa, 38, who was removed from her home by authorities overnight, told AFP news agency. The entrepreneur remembers that, in the 1980s, it was normal to see the flow of the Maipo increase so much during the winter, but that she had not seen such intense rain for many years.

The flow of the rivers advanced towards the south and caused flooding at different points. The precipitation left 80% of the municipality of Coltauco underwater, while in Licantén, on the banks of the Mataquito River, almost all buildings are flooded, including the hospital.

The most worrying situation in the last report was along the Maule, whose flow had doubled in the last few hours, leading the authorities to move about 1,800 residents from Constitución, 400 km from Santiago. The rains continued towards the south on Sunday night, but are expected to be less intense, according to the emergency committee.

The operation of some of the main roads in the country was interrupted, such as the one that connects the country from north to south and the one that runs from Santiago to the port city of Valparaíso, on the Pacific. There was also damage to railway bridges.

The increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events is linked to climate change caused by global warming, according to scientists and bodies specialized in the subject.