Chile has declared a state of catastrophe across parts of its arid north after a week of rainstorms triggered flooding and mudslides in regions that in a normal year receive almost no precipitation at all. President José Antonio Kast decreed the measure for the Coquimbo region and Huasco province in Atacama, allowing the government to deploy the military, restrict movement and accelerate the delivery of aid.
The national disaster agency, Senapred, confirmed 10 deaths between the Atacama and La Araucanía regions, along with 16 injuries and four people missing, in figures published on 21 July; later reports put the toll at 13. More than 63,000 people have been left isolated by damaged roads, most of them in Atacama and Coquimbo.
The housing damage is the clearest measure of the scale, and it is heavily weighted toward the less severe end: of roughly 23,470 homes assessed or awaiting assessment, 81 were destroyed and 2,661 sustained major damage, while 18,957 were logged with minor damage and a further 1,771 have yet to be evaluated. Meteorologists have attributed the unusual rainfall to El Niño conditions in the Pacific.