(Reuters) – Firefighters in central Chile yesterday battled to quell fierce forest fires that have killed 123 people so far and razed entire neighborhoods, while President Gabriel Boric warned the country faces a “tragedy of very great magnitude”.
Hundreds of people are still missing, authorities say, stoking fears the death toll will keep climbing as more bodies are found on hillsides and houses devastated by the wildfires.
The fires that gathered momentum on Friday now menaced the outer edges of Vina del Mar and Valparaiso, two coastal cities popular with tourists. The urban sprawl of those cities accounts for more than a million residents west of the capital Santiago.