Shortly after 19:00 on Tuesday, October 20, the Servicio Nacional de Prevención y Respuesta ante Desastres (Senapred), Chile's national disaster prevention and response agency, ordered the evacuation of the Ribera del Río informal settlement in Talagante after the Mapocho River overflowed. The Región Metropolitana, the Santiago metropolitan region, remains under Red Alert.
According to El Mostrador, the agency activated the Sistema de Alerta de Emergencia (SAE), the emergency messaging system that reaches mobile phones in a given area, to back up the evacuation that technical teams were already carrying out on the ground. The order came on a day of heavy rain, thunderstorms, hail and flooding in several comunas (municipalities) of Santiago.
On its X account, Senapred asked residents to stay calm and follow the instructions of authorities and response teams. It also reminded them to take their pets and their needs into account when moving to safe areas.
After an overnight meeting of the Comité para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (Cogrid), the disaster risk management committee, Senapred national director Alicia Cebrián gave a new update: two people affected, 111 in shelters and one home destroyed nationwide. Of those in shelters, 103 are in the Región Metropolitana and eight in Coquimbo. The destroyed home and the affected people were recorded in Valparaíso.
Undersecretary of the Interior Máximo Pavez said that, based on the information available, no serious emergencies had been recorded in the affected regions. He warned, however, that the rain is not over yet and that preventive measures will stay in place. The Dirección Meteorológica de Chile, the national weather service, forecast rainfall during the early morning hours.
The risk remains concentrated in the Andean foothills. In Puente Alto, Mayor Matías Toledo reported in the afternoon a preventive evacuation of 172 families from the Valle Hermoso and El Sueño de Todos settlements.
Metropolitan Governor Claudio Orrego warned that containment works in Lo Barnechea and Peñalolén are filling with rocks and sediment. According to his information, the retention basins in the Nido de Águila ravine, in Peñalolén, are saturated with mud. "There's still the last surge of water to come before we can declare victory," he said, calling for maintenance of existing prevention infrastructure as well as the construction of new works.
In Las Condes, authorities are monitoring Quebrada Honda and San Carlos de Apoquindo, areas hit by the October 8 mudslide.
The heaviest rain fell in the Valparaíso Region. As of around 19:00, Quillota had recorded 35 millimeters, Quintero 25 and the Torquemada station 22. In the capital, El Monte reached 28 millimeters, Tobalaba 12.2 and Quinta Normal 6.5.
Wind gusts forced the closure of the ports of Valparaíso and San Antonio. Near the La Serena airfield, winds reached between 60 and 70 kilometers per hour, and 50 on the Valparaíso coast.
A report from the Superintendencia de Electricidad y Combustibles (SEC), the electricity and fuel regulator, released in the afternoon, counted 79,491 customers without power, mainly in Coquimbo, Valparaíso, Maule and the Región Metropolitana. The figure predates the overnight update and may change.
Metro de Santiago, the capital's subway system, closed Departamental station on Line 2 for part of the day, though the company clarified that the leak that prompted the closure was unrelated to the rain.
The Ministerio de Educación (Ministry of Education) confirmed that classes resume this Wednesday, October 21 in the Metropolitana, Antofagasta, Coquimbo and O'Higgins regions, at nurseries, primary schools and secondary schools. Authorities advised checking notices from each school. A return is also expected in Valparaíso, provided there are no new emergencies overnight.
