Santiago de Chile, June 13 (EFE).- Chilean authorities are monitoring with concern the third sinkhole that has opened due to heavy rains in just one year under the foundations of two buildings built on the historic natural dunes that overlook the ocean. Pacific, in the north of the city of Viña del Mar.
The last of these sinkholes, which opened on Sunday, remains on a single pillar in the middle of the sand, as a local media discovered today with a shocking image, in the middle of the intense frontal system that shakes the entire center of the country and that It has left thousands of victims in the city of Viña del Mar itself, neighboring Valparaiso, and the Metropolitan region, where nearly 40% of Chile’s population lives.
Although the greatest damage has been caused in the regions of Biobio, Maule and O’Higgings, where nearly 7,000 people have had to be evacuated as a result of flooding and the overflowing of a dozen rivers.
The first of the sinkholes in the natural dunes of Concón and Reñaca opened in August of last year, as a result of a torrential downpour that hit the central area of the country, a phenomenon that was replicated again last September with only eight millimeters of water, installing the doubt regarding the construction permits granted to build large apartment towers on a dune field facing the Pacific Ocean.
This morning, dozens of emergency teams and heavy machinery were mobilized near the Euromarina II building in the Reñaca sector, in Viña del Mar, to prevent the giant crack under its foundations from continuing to grow, also threatened by intense waves that were adds to the 100 millimeters of rain projected for the region between today and tomorrow.
Given this situation, the regional authorities this week instructed the formation of a security perimeter and ordered preventive evacuation for towers 2 and 3.
According to recent research, the urbanization of these protected and unique natural areas in the area began in the eighties, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989) and accelerated during the transition to democracy.
Last Tuesday, a frontal system arrived in Chile that has wreaked havoc in the central-southern area of the country, forcing the Government to declare a disaster zone along more than 500 kilometers, including the regions of Coquimbo, Valparaíso, Metropolitana, O ‘Higgins, Maule and Ñuble.
Until this morning, according to the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, there was one dead person, 4,300 people affected and 2,300 homes damaged, where the most affected commune is Curanilahue, in the Biobío region, which suffered the overflowing of its rivers. surroundings.
For his part, the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, who is on an official tour of Europe, stated that the State institutions are “fully deployed” to face the emergency and that “all the respective public officials are concerned about addressing this with as quickly as possible.” EFE
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