region:southern chile

‘The Greatest Forest Disaster in Our History’: Wildfires Tear Through Chile - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/world/americas/chile-wildfires.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/01/26/world/26Chile1/26Chile1-facebookJumbo.jpg

A series of wildfires has devastated homes, farmland and livestock in a large area of southern and central Chile over the past week.

A prolonged drought and high temperatures have worsened the blazes, which have so far destroyed around 300,000 acres of forest land and killed three firefighters. The government has declared a state of emergency, deployed 1,200 troops to support the efforts of firefighters, and appealed for help from other countries.

Chile has “practically exhausted its capacity to fight the blaze,” President Michelle Bachelet said, adding that her country was living through “the greatest forest disaster in our history.”

#sécheresse #climat #incendies #Chili

BUTALEBU Chilean Big River (subtitled)
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/butalebu-chilean-big-river-subtitled

Bío Bío basin is the great womb of southern Chile, where hundreds of living beings. This is a tribute and a warning for future generations are aware of how important it is to care for nature and...

The Colony: Chile’s dark past uncovered
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeracorrespondent/2013/11/colony-chile-dark-past-uncovered-2013114105429774517.html

In 1961, a former #Nazi officer called Paul Schaefer fled Germany, along with hundreds of others, to found a sect in southern Chile. In an idyllic rural enclave framed by the Andes Mountains he created a virtual state within a state - one where horrifying events unfolded.

Initially with the ignorance of the government, and then with the complicity of the #Pinochet regime, children were separated from their parents at birth and raised in a Kinder House. Men and women were kept apart and often drugged, while Schaefer systematically sexually abused boys and, occasionally, girls.

But it was not only the residents of Colonia Dignidad, or the Dignity Colony, that endured such brutalities. The secluded Colony, set on a huge estate featuring forests, mountains and rivers and enclosed by electrified barbed wire fences and look-out posts manned by armed guards, was the perfect place for the interrogation, #torture and disposal of anyone Pinochet considered to be an enemy.