An avalanche left at least three dead and four injured on Saturday, October 17, in the Laguna del Inca area, in the municipality of Los Andes (Valparaíso Region), near the Portillo ski resort and hotel, high in the Andes and along the route to the Cristo Redentor border crossing with Argentina.
According to Cooperativa, the emergency occurred at around 14:45. According to elperiodista.cl, a group of mountaineers ascending Los Tres Hermanos mountain was caught in the snow slide.
The figures changed during the afternoon. The National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (Senapred) reported four deaths in an update at 16:48. Later, the presidential delegate for the Valparaíso Region, Manuel Millones, corrected the figure: "There was erroneous information from SAMU, which reported four deaths".
Millones clarified that seven people were affected. So far, two bodies have been recovered. The third is in the lake, which is 30 meters deep, and, according to the delegate, teams on the ground lack the equipment needed to retrieve it, so another institution must be tasked with the operation. He did not specify which one.
Emergency Medical Care Service (SAMU) personnel are treating and assessing the four injured people. They will then transfer them to different healthcare facilities depending on the severity of their injuries. The sources did not report their names or health status.
The mayor of Los Andes, Manuel Rivera, said the victims were Chilean hikers and were not staying at the facility, because the ski resort had already closed for the season. He added that the area has signs and that access is prohibited.
Rivera also said that, according to official information from the hotel, the head of security warned the hikers that the time they wanted to ascend was the most dangerous. "These are hikers who often do not heed warnings", he said.
The acting provincial presidential delegate for Los Andes, Sebastián Caldera, explained that the avalanche occurred behind Hotel Portillo, in a ravine he described as quite dangerous. He said the incident reinforced the preventive campaigns conducted in the area against this type of excursion.
Senapred, Los Andes firefighters, the police (with support from an air police brigade), SAMU, Hotel Portillo staff and the Cristo Redentor Integrated System are working at the site. Senapred has not ruled out the possibility that more people are trapped, so the search remains ongoing.
