Firefighters were fighting dozens of forest fires in Chile this Sunday, one of the biggest natural disasters in years in the Latin American country, which left at least 24 dead and almost a thousand injured.
“The Chilean people can count on the support of France to fight against this scourge,” the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron said on social networks on the night of Sunday to Monday.
“Tragic fires are ravaging various regions of Chile. All my thoughts are with the families of the victims and the heroes fighting the flames,” she wrote.
Nearly 300,000 hectares burned
In Chile, the government of President Gabriel Boric has declared a state of emergency in three mainly rural regions in the south of the country to speed up the arrival of relief.
A handful of countries have pledged to help Chile, including sending planes and teams of experts, as flames ripped through three forested and agricultural regions near the heart of the Pacific coast.
Some 270,000 hectares have been devastated by the fires, according to an official announcement made on Sunday, against the backdrop of a searing wave that complicates the efforts of firefighters to extinguish the flames. In some areas, the summer temperature exceeded 40 degrees.
Source: BFM TV
