The body of a man was found on Wednesday afternoon in an irrigation canal next to the Mapocho River, near Avenida Pedro de Valdivia, in Providencia, a comuna (municipality) of Santiago. People walking in the area discovered him and alerted the authorities.
According to BioBioChile, the Brigada de Homicidios Metropolitana (Metropolitan Homicide Squad) of the Policía de Investigaciones (PDI, Chile's investigative police) took charge of the investigation. According to T13, the Fiscalía Oriente (Eastern Prosecutor's Office) ordered the unit to go to the scene.
Comisario (police inspector) Vicente Torres González, of that squad, explained that the victim is an adult man of approximately 50 years of age. He has not yet been identified.
Torres said the victim was found by "people who were walking in the area". T13 specified that they were a group of young people.
T13 also reported that when emergency teams and police arrived, the body was in an advanced state of decomposition and showed various injuries. Investigators are looking into whether these injuries can be explained by the body being possibly dragged by the rising water flow. The sources do not report how long the body had been in the canal.
For now, detectives have two priorities. First, they are seeking to establish the man's identity in order to locate his relatives. After that, they must determine the circumstances of his death. According to the inspector, the investigation will continue once the victim's identity is known.
The sources do not report the cause of death or whether anyone has been arrested. That information will depend on the PDI's investigative work and on the forensic examinations ordered by the Fiscalía Oriente.
