SANTIAGO - The death toll from wildfires raging across central Chile hit 122 on Feb 5 as helicopters dumped tonnes of water on blazes, and emergency crews told Reuters they were still finding bodies buried in the wreckage three days after the fires took hold.

The toll from Chile’s worst natural disaster in years was expected to climb further as residents, firefighters and military raced to clear rubble in residential areas of the coastal cities of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, where fireballs consumed houses within minutes.

“It’s like a war zone, as if a bomb went off,” said Ms Jacqueline Atenas, 63, who fled her home in nearby Villa Independencia on Feb 2, returning to the wreckage on Feb 5 carrying a small pink backpack, the only thing she had been able to save.

“It burned like someone was throwing gasoline on the houses. I don’t understand what happened... There was a lot of wind, a lot of wind and big balls of fire that would fly by.”

Down the street, Mr Luis Parra said he was barely able to escape with his wife and grandchildren. By the time he saw sparks reaching his house, the power had gone out, and they could not open their gate to escape by car.

They managed to jump in a friend’s car and get away. But his sister and his blind father died. Their bodies were found a block from their home.

“We never thought this could happen,” Mr Parra said.

Other residents of Villa Independencia, a working-class neighbourhood of Vina del Mar, described high winds and a fast-moving inferno.

Ms Ingrid Crespo, 59, said she first saw the fire far in the distance on Feb 2 then watched it jump from hill to hill.

“The sparks would leap, and the wind was blowing like it was a hurricane,” Ms Crespo said.

She started pouring water on her roof when she saw sparks flying in, but was too late to save her home.

She escaped in sandals with nothing but the clothes on her back. Many of her neighbours were killed. Her cat and dog died in the fire.

“When my son came on Sunday there were dead bodies,” Ms Crespo said. “There are so many dead.”

Chile began an official two-day mourning period on Feb 5. Hundreds of people are still missing and some 14,000 homes have been damaged, officials say.

Drone footage filmed by Reuters in the Vina del Mar area showed whole neighbourhoods scorched, with residents rummaging through husks of burnt-out houses where corrugated iron roofs had collapsed. On the streets, singed cars littered the roads.

Deputy Interior Minister Manuel Monsalve on Feb 4 said there were still 165 active fires, up from 154 on Feb 3.

A curfew has been imposed in the hardest-hit regions and the military has been sent in to help firefighters stop the spread.

Mr Monsalve said slightly lower temperatures and cloud cover could help the authorities put out the fires in coming days.

“We’re going to keep having high temperatures, but not extreme ones,” Mr Monsalve said at a press conference.

Chile’s investigative police force has said it was investigating areas where fires might have been started intentionally.

Chile, Argentina and other parts of South America’s southern cone have been facing a severe heatwave, something experts say will become more common during the Southern Hemisphere summer months due to climate change.

Extreme weather in Chile has also been exacerbated by the El Nino weather phenomenon, which warms the Pacific Ocean.

Ms Jesica Barrios, who lost her home in Vina del Mar, told Reuters over the weekend that the fire had arrived “from one moment to the next”.

“The fire reached the botanical park and then in ten minutes it was already on us,” she said. “There was smoke, the sky turned black, everything was dark. The wind felt like a hurricane. It was like being in hell.” REUTERS