Emergency Relief Aid for Damage Caused by Large-Scale Forest Fires in the Republic of Chile -Delivery of Donated Goods
Emergency relief supplies provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have been delivered to several regions in south-central Chile, where large forest fires continue to spread.
The emergency relief supplies to be provided to the Republic of Chile were procured locally by the JICA Chile Branch Office and delivered in sequence to the warehouse of SENAPRED in Santiago, the capital city of Chile, following the decision on February 10. The ceremony was attended by Chilean Foreign Minister Antonia Urrejola, CONAF Director General Pablo Lobos, and SENAPRED External Relations Director Daphne Nunez, and Japanese Ambassador to Chile Kazuhisa Shibuya and JICA Chile Office Director Shoji Ozawa.
At the handover ceremony, Foreign Minister Urejola expressed his deep appreciation for Japan’s prompt assistance to Chile in the emergency response to the earthquake in Turkey and Syria (President Boric expressed his gratitude to Japan at the time of the decision on February 10), and also announced that the supplies delivered to the Disaster Prevention and Response Agency (SENAPRED) will be used to assist the devastated areas in Nuebre, Bio Bio, and AraucanÃa in south-central Chile, as well as to extinguish fires. (SENAPRED) will be delivered sequentially from February 17 to the affected areas in Nuebre, Bio Bio, and AraucanÃa regions in south-central Chile, which were severely damaged, and to the Chilean Forest Service (CONAF), which is carrying out firefighting activities.
The Forest Service expressed its gratitude to JICA for its longstanding relationship with Japan, which has been built up since the past JICA-Japan Forest Management Project for Reforestation and Watershed Management (in the 1990s). In terms of the relationship with Japan, he expressed his gratitude for the long cooperative relationship with JICA since the implementation of the project for afforestation and watershed management in the 1990s.
In response, Ambassador Shibuya said that Japan and Chile have built a deep relationship of trust, and that it was very significant to provide prompt emergency assistance in this major disaster, and that he hoped the damage from the forest fires would subside as soon as possible.
According to the disaster situation announced by the Disaster Prevention and Countermeasures Agency (as of the evening of February 17), fires have occurred in 233 locations in all three south-central regions and four cities in one region, covering an area of 436,053 ha (equivalent to twice the area of Tokyo (218,868 ha)), with 25 people killed, 3,034 injured, 7,006 people affected, and 1.885 houses destroyed, The JICA Chile office plans to follow up on the provision of emergency relief supplies and continue its cooperation not only for forest fire disasters, but also for disaster prevention and mitigation of natural disasters as a whole, as well as for climate change countermeasures.
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