The Minister of Defense, Maya Fernández, After participating in the Disaster Risk Management Committee (Cogrid) of the Maule Region, he announced the deployment of the Armed Forces as support in the Maule region due to the intense rainfall that has affected the area.
The meeting took place in Regiment No. 16 Talca, where the Secretary of State attended and was accompanied by the Regional Presidential delegate, Humberto Aqueveque Díaz; the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice Admiral Pablo Niemann, the regional director of Senapred, Carlos Bernales and other local authorities.
After the meeting, Minister Fernández maintained that “as proposed by the Ministry of the Interior, a preventive emergency has been decreed between the Region of Coquimbo and Ñuble, therefore, it is important to say that this allows certain measures to be taken in non-work “only in the rains, but preventive.”
In that sense, the authority called on the population to avoid the coastal edge of the area, due to the wind and storm surge present in the area.
“From a defense point of view, At this moment there are two UFEC (Fundamental Emergency and Disaster Unit) with 83 men each willing to be deployedIn addition, there is a Mountain Rescue patrol, specialized as it is very important,” stated the Secretary of State.
“So that what happened last year does not happen, A UFEC mission is already deployed in Licantén which is important to say,” he noted, stating that this team has various equipment to carry out rescues both by land and air.
Likewise, he addressed the lack of electricity supply that has left more than 50 thousand customers affected in the region. “They have to do with the wind, that is the different characteristic, because it is not only rain but the wind that has affected and the fall of the trees, they told us that it has obviously affected some sectors that are without electricity. Measures are being taken, that is why removing the trees, the companies, the coordination, Seremi made us aware of that,” Fernández stated.
In addition, the authority committed night monitoring in the area. “Permanent monitoring is important (…) tomorrow we will also be here in the national Cogrid having more information on what happens at night,” said the Minister of Defense, who was traveling to Linares.
He regional director of Senapred, Carlos Bernales, stated that this frontal system “He has extreme behavior between 2 in the morning and 6 in the morning on Thursday, when your arrives peak with rainfall that we will have between 40 to 60 mm, in valleys and coast, and 100 to 110 centimeters of snow in the mountain range, with an isotherm that will fluctuate between 2,700 and down to 2,100 above sea level. It is a cold frontal system, fortunately (…) but it has associated winds on the coast, valley and foothills, between 40 to 50 km/hr, with gusts of up to 60km/hr.”
“This is going to bring down trees, no matter what, as you know, our electric highway passes through the forests of our region.” which is agricultural and forestry, with a rurality that exceeds 60%, that makes us much more vulnerable to these frontal system events, Therefore, we are going to have power outages, we are going to experience power outages in the rural area and we are also going to have water outages.”announced the director of Senapred, who added that, despite the activation of the water courses, he pointed out that waterlogging and flooding situations like those that occurred last year will not occur, and also called on the population to self-care. and avoid going to perform “emergency tourism”.
Therefore, the regional presidential delegate, Humberto Aqueveque Díaz, added that “The decision has been made to suspend classes in all the communes of the Maule Region, Furthermore, while we were carrying out the Cogrid we already had 15 communes that had suspended classes in coordination with the Seremi of Education, therefore, from initial, basic and secondary education, both in the region and its communes, it will be suspended. ”.
Likewise, he confirmed that the respective coordinations are being carried out to deliver the food that the students require. Besides, highlighted that there are 59 points of interest reported by the Ministry of Public Works, that could be affected by heavy rains.
