A tornado with a preliminary rating of EF0 or EF1 struck the comuna (municipality) of Retiro, in the Región del Maule, at 14:07 on Wednesday. It damaged at least ten homes, mainly their roofs and other structures.
According to T13, residents first saw a tornadic cloud. At the same time, strong winds brought down trees in several parts of the region. Retiro is a farming comuna in the province of Linares, south of the regional capital, Talca.
The Red Geocientífica de Chile, an organization that monitors natural phenomena, confirmed that the event was a tornado. It posted on X that its analysts had determined the event affected the Maitenes and Huaso Chileno areas and that they were mapping its path.
Before the confirmation, the same organization had reported a funnel cloud, with damage and fallen trees in Huaso Chileno and San Isidro, BioBioChile reported. The EF (Enhanced Fujita) scale classifies tornadoes according to the damage they cause. EF0 and EF1 are the lowest categories.
Staff from the Municipalidad de Retiro (Retiro's local government) went out to help affected families and hand out materials to repair roofs. The sources do not report how many people were affected or whether anyone was injured.
Geologist Christián Salazar told T13 that Meteorología, meaning the Dirección Meteorológica de Chile (Chile's national weather service), had forecast storms with tornadic features for this weather front. He added that such events are common in the Maule, Ñuble and Biobío regions.
Salazar also noted that geological records show heavy rains, floods and debris flows in central and south-central Chile going back thousands of years. Those episodes occurred before the concept of the El Niño phenomenon existed.
Concern continues in Retiro because the forecast calls for rain and strong winds over the coming hours. So far, no authority has reported a final damage assessment.
