SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) \u2014 Chile extended an emergency declaration to yet another region on Saturday as firefighters struggled to control dozens of raging wildfires that have claimed at least 22 lives amid a scorching heat wave that has broken records.<\/p>\n
The government declared a state of catastrophe in the La Araucan\u00eda region, which is south of \u00d1uble and Biob\u00edo, two central-southern regions where the emergency declaration had already been issued. The measure allows for greater cooperation with the military.<\/p>\n
At least 22 people have died in connection to the fires and 554 have been injured, including 16 in serious condition, according to Interior Minister Carolina Toh\u00e1. The death toll is likely to rise as Toh\u00e1 said there are unconfirmed reports of at least 10 people missing.<\/p>\n
Sixteen of the deaths took place in Biob\u00edo, five in La Araucan\u00eda and one in \u00d1uble.<\/p>\n
The deaths included a Bolivian pilot who died when a helicopter that was helping combat the flames crashed in La Araucan\u00eda. A Chilean mechanic also died in the crash.<\/p>\n
Over the past week, fires have burned through an area equivalent to what is usually burned in an entire year, Toh\u00e1 said in a news conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thermometer has reached points that we have never known until now,\u201d Toh\u00e1 said.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
As of Saturday morning, there were 251 wildfires raging throughout Chile, 151 of which were under control, according to Chile\u2019s Senapred disaster agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeventy-six new fires appeared yesterday,\u201d Toh\u00e1 said Saturday.<\/p>\n
The minister also suggested the fires should serve as yet another wake up call about the effects of climate change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe evolution of climate change shows us again and again that this has a centrality and a capacity to cause an impact that we have to internalize much more,\u201d Toh\u00e1 said. \u201cChile is one of the countries with the highest vulnerability to climate change, and this isn\u2019t theory but rather practical experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chile is requesting international cooperation to assist the firefighting efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re requesting support from several countries to address the emergency,\u201d President Gabriel Boric wrote on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) \u2014 Chile extended an emergency declaration to yet another region on Saturday as firefighters struggled to control dozens of raging wildfires that have claimed at least 22 lives amid a scorching heat wave that has broken records. The government declared a state of catastrophe in the La Araucan\u00eda region, which is south […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":413065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-413064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413066,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413064\/revisions\/413066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonna.so\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}