Chile Wildfire Survivors Return To Horrifying Aftermath

Viña del Mar, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Feb, 2024) Within minutes his world erupted in a hellish fire: Abraham Mardones, with just the clothes on his back, miraculously managed to escape the epicenter of the deadliest wildfires in Chile's recent history.

Still shaken by the charred bodies he saw inside the crumbling houses in his Villa Independencia neighborhood of Vina del Mar, the 24-year-old welder and university student has been left devastated.

"My neighbors were burned" to death, he said Sunday, recalling how he covered one of their corpses.

"The fire consumed everything -- memories, comforts, homes. I was left with nothing but my overalls and a pair of sneakers that were given to me as a gift," Mardones told AFP. "I could only rescue my dog.

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Mardones lived with several relatives in a row of four houses. While their lives were saved, they lost everything else.

As evening fell Friday, wind-whipped flames raced over the crowded hills of the coastal city of Vina del Mar and other areas of the Valparaiso region.

Mardones and other residents were buffeted by gusts of incandescent air.

To date there have been 112 confirmed deaths, but the government expects the toll to swell in the South American country's worst tragedy since a 2010 earthquake and tsunami.

In Villa Independencia alone, at least 19 people perished, authorities said, and between 3,000 and 6,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. The smell of ash and burned plastic lingered.