Santiago: At least four people are dead and 19 others missing after heavy rains struck Chile over the weekend during the country’s usually dry summer months, causing mudslides and water outages in the South American nation, officials said on Sunday.
The rains, which caused rivers to overflow their banks in mountain valleys near Chile’s capital, Santiago, had isolated 373 people, the Onemi emergency service said late on Sunday.
The drinking-water supply for over a million households in Santiago had been affected, and Aguas Andinas, the company that provides water to the capital, said rains were making repairs difficult.
“Emergency teams are working on the ground to connect with isolated persons and re-establish the water supply wherever possible,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet wrote on Twitter.
In the O’Higgins region, south of Santiago, a 12-year-old girl was killed when a landslide swept away the car in which she was travelling.
In the San Jose de Maipo valley, directly above the city, emergency crews had to clear the roads of debris before residents could evacuate to lower, less mountainous ground.
It was the second major flooding event to hit central Chile in the past year. Last April, heavy rains battered the San Jose de Maipo valley, killing one and shutting production at some of the largest copper mines in the world.
Mining giants Antofagasta, state-owned Codelco, and Anglo American have sizeable deposits in the zone affected by this weekend’s rains.
All three said production had not been affected.
Rainstorms and landslides contaminated a major river, forcing authorities to cut off drinking water to four million people in the capital, authorities said.
The torrential rain that started Saturday prompted mudslides and rubble to surge into the Maipo river which supplies most homes in the capital.
“We are talking about 1.45 million homes that are going to be affected by the cutting off of the water supply, which will be total or partial in 30 districts,” of Santiago, the region’s governor Claudio Orrego told a news conference.
He said the cut would therefore affect more than 60 per cent of the city’s 6.5 million-strong population — about 3.9 million people.
The move prompted many people to go out with buckets and pans to collect water at emergency water taps made available by the authorities.
Others rushed to supermarkets to bag bottles of water from the shelves.
“We still do not know when the drinking water will be turned back on,” Orrego said.
“We cannot guarantee resumption of the service until the River Maipo clears up.”
Authorities ordered restaurants and businesses without drinking water to stay closed.
They also postponed the start of lessons for the new school term on Monday.
The interior ministry said four people were known to have died and six were missing due to the rain.
A rainstorm hit near the river in the countryside east of Santiago.
“The force of nature swept away bridges and left 1,200 people cut off” in Cordillera province, said the area’s governor Vanessa Marimon.
The ministry said 3,300 people were cut off overall by floods.
Heavy rain also caused flooding in the northern Antofagasta region and in the tourist district of San Pedro de Atacama.
