Santiago de Chile, June 13 (EFEverde).- Tens of thousands of people have been affected by the intense torrential rains that have hit the central region of the country since Tuesday and that have fallen heavily since this morning in the capital, Santiago de Chile. , where they have already caused evictions due to flooding, electricity supply interruptions and traffic problems, in addition to forcing the suspension of classes in schools and universities.
A front that according to the Secretary of State for the Interior, Manuel Monsalve, will begin to subside in the next few hours and that will not be as long as had been predicted, although it will also leave historical rainfall figures in the metropolitan region, where he lives. almost 40% of the country’s population.
After participating in the Risk and Disaster Management Committee (Cogrid), held after noon, the number two of the Interior stated that “the worst” of the rains “is over,” and that is why the red alarm that was weighing was lifted. on the capital region and the neighboring regions of Ñuble, Biobío, Coquimbo, Valparaíso and O’Higgins.
“The amount of rainfall that is going to fall is less than what had been predicted,” stressed Monsalve, who however specified that classes remain suspended on Friday as a precaution and due to the recovery and removal of water and mud in numerous sectors. of the capital and the rest of the regions of the country.
One of the most dramatic situations is experienced on the banks of the Curalinaue River, in the Biobio region, one of the most affected, where more than 5,000 people have been forced to abandon their homes due to the overflowing waters and the lack of conditions to control the runaway channel.
The logging industry, guilty?
Several neighbors have denounced before television cameras that beyond the force of nature and climate change, the tragedy has its origins in the extractivist economic system, since most of the land belongs to large logging companies and barely There are building areas beyond the river beds.
Another 400 families also had to flee their homes on Tuesday due to the overflowing of another of the hundreds of rivers that exist in the central regions of Chile.
Further north, in the neighboring region of Maule, a man died during the early hours of the morning after being hit by an electricity pole that was defeated by the wind, which in some areas of the country is exceeding 80 kilometers per hour.
In addition to Curanilahue, the communes of Arauco and Santa Juana are the most affected: between them there are nearly 7,000 affected people, the majority of whom have been forced to move after seeing their homes flooded or collapsed.
As data to measure the flow of rain, the Carriel Sur Station in Concepción, one of the main meteorological monitoring centers in the Biobío region, in the first 12 days of June, 274.6 millimeters fell in the area, 34% of all the rain that fell in 2023.
Chaos in Santiago
In the capital, the large avenues of the most affluent areas are still torrents, with large pockets of water accumulated in sidewalks, parks and gardens, while in irregular towns or camps, mudflats and landslides have left dozens of people without shelter. in their precarious homes.
At 8:00 a.m. local time, more than 20,000 homes were without electricity supply in the capital’s communes of Isla de Maipo, Melipilla and Padre Hurtado, while dozens of basements were flooded in the center of the capital, some level crossings cut off. , several tunnels disabled and numerous traffic lights turned off.
At that time, more than 23 milliliters of rain per square meter had fallen in a time interval of just four hours, creating chaos in vehicular traffic.
In addition, an alert was raised for possible overflowing of the Mapocho and Maipo rivers, and neighborhoods in the south had to be evacuated, especially in the Talagante area.
President’s Appeal
From Germany, where he is as part of a European tour that began on Sunday, the President of the Republic, Gabriel Boric, urged citizens to apply the recommendations of the emergency services and respect the state of climate alert, which extends also to the coastal regions of Viña del Mar and Valparaiso and even the northern area of Coquimbo.
“The responsibility that we do not have fatalities, that the effects are as minor as possible, is shared. From the State we have to fulfill our role, but it is also important that families and people who receive alerts comply with the instructions of the authorities. This is key when it comes to saving lives,” he stressed.
In this regard, and as happened in the summer months with the fires, the opposition has introduced the climate tragedy into an element of the political discussion, criticizing the president for continuing his European tour without changes, which will also take him to France in includes his participation in the Ukrainian peace conference.
One of the most belligerent was the ultraconservative mayor of La Florida, one of the communes in the east of the capital, Rodolfo Carter, who on national television suggested that Boric did not care about the situation in the country. EFEverde
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