Valparaiso Amidst Flames Poverty Inequality

On the afternoon of April 12, 2014, a devastating fire began and soon spread rapidly across many of the highly populated hills and ravines above the Chilean port and university city of Valparaiso. "The Great Fire of Valparaiso" as it is now known lasted several days.

This UNESCO World Heritage listed city is known as, "The Pearl of the Pacific."  It is one of South America's most distinctive cities for its rich history, historic architecture, cobblestone passageways and twisting urban development around the steep cliffs and ravines of its 45 hills high above the city.
 
The Columbans have worked in the hills and ravines of Valparaiso since 1992. Many of the people who lost their homes in the fire on La Cruz Hill are known to the Columbans. This is a part of the parish of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the parish where the Columbans first began working in Valparaiso.

Jorge Paredes is a journalist who works for the Columbans in Chile. In the days after the fire he wrote the following article.

The atmosphere in Valparaiso is hard to believe. The devastation caused by the rapid spread of the flames, leaves one stunned. The authorities report that eight hills and ravines have been affected, with 956 hectares consumed by fire, 15 people, mostly the elderly, dead, more than 2900 homes destroyed and 12,500 people homeless.

Valparaiso breathes sadness and inequality.

With the hills and ravines still smouldering, the media are beginning to discover the "other" Valparaiso. A well-known journalist from one of Chile's principle TV channels asked a woman whose small home had been destroyed by the fire what was she doing in the first place living in one of the most dangerous and fire prone ravines of the city.

The woman replied, "It's because the poor don't have a choice where they might live, Miss!"

Don Augusto, like many of the residents of Ramaditas Hill, went across to La Cruz Hill to help a nephew who had lost everything in the fire the day before. Within hours, his wife called him to say that the fire was now approaching their home.

Even though twice in recent years fires had come close to their home, this time it was different. "I went to help a nephew on La Cruz Hill without knowing that the same thing would happen to me. The fire took everything. All I was left with was what I was wearing," said this man in his 50s as he gazed with desolation at the debris of what was once his home.

"When my wife called me to say the fire was advancing, I ran back through the ravine towards my home. All of a sudden I met my wife and son running away from the flames. I managed to get to my home and tried to fight the advance of the fire to neighbouring homes.

All of a sudden, there was only one way out through the ravine to escape the flames. I had to leave everything behind, our history, our memories, our dreams and all our hard work," he says with his voice ready to break.

The area where Don Augusto and his family had lived near the top of Ramaditatas Hill is an area where the shacks of the poor mix with the local forest and is on the periphery, high above the city.

The rapid urban growth of Valparaiso has meant that the city pushes the poor like Don Augusto and his family further and further out to the periphery of the city, up the hills and into the ravines high above the city to erect their small precarious shacks.

Many of the poor illegally occupy land in these areas in what is a fire danger zone. However, this is the only option for the poor if they want to live in Valparaiso, which can offer them better job prospects if they are lucky. To live in these areas is a permanent risk and the poor know it.

The recent official figures on Valparaiso are chilling. They show the precariousness of its inhabitants. 22% of the population live below the poverty line. The poorest 10% of the city's inhabitants earn about $300 Australian or New Zealand dollars a month, while the 10% richest earn on average about $8,000 a month.

Every so often, Don Augusto looks out over the edge of the hill to the ravine where he had previously lived with his wife, his 15-year-old son with Down's Syndrome and the 16 members of his extended family, brothers and sisters and their families. He has decided not to rebuild in this area again, particularly for fear for the safety of his son.
 
However, his extended family will go back and rebuild in the same place. They feel they have no option as the poor cannot afford to choose where to live. Meanwhile Don Augusto and family are living with his son's godmother. He knows he cannot go back into the ravine, but where to, he does not know.

Meanwhile he is voluntarily cleaning up the rubble from the fire, saying that is the least he can do to give thanks for the help he and his family have received since the fire.

Jorge Paredes is a journalist who works for the Columbans in Chile.

Read more from The Far East, June 2014