TALAGANTE, Chile — Police in central Chile used helicopters to rescue residents trapped by floodwaters after torrential rain caused the Mapocho River to burst its banks, flooding large parts of Talagante, about 22 miles southwest of the capital, Santiago, BBC News reported.
Carabineros air units rescued 17 people — 13 adults and four children — who had been stranded on a kind of islet in the riverbed, Chile’s 24 Horas reported. About 100 people and their pets were evacuated from an informal camp by the river, where water rose almost a meter high, and some 200 homes in Talagante were flooded. “This camp has to be cleared, it is in the riverbed. What we are seeing is not unheard of,” said Germán Codina, the presidential delegate for the Santiago Metropolitan Region.
Officials said one person was found dead in a flooded underpass in San Bernardo, south of Santiago, though they had not confirmed the cause of death. Dirt roads in the riverside community turned into rivers; unlike during storms in July, the area had not been evacuated ahead of the downpours, the BBC said.
Santiago recorded 74 millimeters of rain in the first seven days of October, making it the area’s rainiest October in 76 years, meteorologists said. They warned that this year’s unusually strong El Niño is likely to keep bringing wet weather, powerful winds and storms to the region through the southern spring, according to the BBC report.
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