Santiago, Chile (EFE) Senapred).
The water completely destroyed 1,488 homes and damaged another 3,284, forcing the relocation of more than 1,600 people to makeshift shelters.
Those affected by the heavy rainfall, which had not been seen in Chile for 30 years, grew this Tuesday to 13,370.
The Maule region, 280 kilometers south of the capital, accounts for 80% of those affected, followed by the Biobío region and the Metropolitan Region.
Emergency due to rains in Chile
The Government declared on Tuesday an agricultural emergency between Valparaíso and the Biobío region due to the affectation of floods on thousands of hectares of cropland and water infrastructure.
“We have the challenge of starting up the water system for the next season. Winter is going to fly and there are many areas with damaged infrastructures,” asked the president of the National Agricultural Society (SNA), Antonio Walker, after a meeting in Santiago with President Gabriel Boric, in which he offered to collaborate of the union to help the victims.
The rains fell heavily since last Thursday throughout the central area of the country. The foothills sectors were the main affected in the Metropolitan Region, and several points in the regions south of the capital have been isolated for several days, with little food and no possibility of leaving except by air.
The rainfall left more than 100 liters per square meter of water in various areas of the country, and up to 589 liters per square meter at one point in the Ñuble region, 400 kilometers south of the capital.
In the opinion of the experts, the abundant rainfall is due to the high temperatures at the tops of the Andes, unusual at the beginning of the southern winter, a consequence of the effects of the El Niño phenomenon and aggravated by climate change.