20 minutes agoShareSaveHenri AstierShareSave<\/p>\n
Chilean President Gabriel Boric has declared a state of catastrophe in two regions where deadly wildfires are raging.<\/p>\n
At least 16 people are confirmed dead in the \u00d1uble and Biob\u00edo regions, about 500km (300 miles) south of the capital Santiago. At least 20,000 have been evacuated. <\/p>\n
The most dangerous fire has swept through dry forests bordering the coastal city of Concepci\u00f3n. About 250 homes have been destroyed, disaster officials said.<\/p>\n
Local media show pictures of charred cars in the streets. Chile has experienced a series of devastating fires in recent years, worsened by long-term drought.<\/p>\n
Chile's forestry agency, Conaf, said firefighters were battling a total of 24 fires across the country on Sunday. The most threatening, it added, were in \u00d1uble and Biob\u00edo.<\/p>\n
"In light of the serious ongoing wildfires, I have decided to declare a state of catastrophe" in the two regions, Boric said in a post on X. "All resources are available," he added.<\/p>\n
The fires have affected 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) in the two regions so far, local media say.<\/p>\n
The bulk of the evacuations were carried out in the cities of Penco and Lirquen, just north of Concepci\u00f3n, which have a combined population of 60,000.<\/p>\n
Strong winds have fanned the flames amid summer temperatures, endangering communities and hampering firefighting efforts.<\/p>\n
Much of Chile is under heat alerts, with temperatures expected to reach 38C between Santiago and Biob\u00edo in the next two days.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, forest fires killed at least 120 people<\/a> in the Valpara\u00edso region near Santiago.<\/p>\n Wildfires<\/a>Chile<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chile declares 'state of catastrophe' as deadly wildfires menace cities20 minutes agoShareSaveHenri AstierShareSaveEPAMore than 250 homes have been destroyed by the firesChilean President Ga…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bbc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp2.niviyo.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}