Xenophobic violence is on the rise in the Chilean area of Iquique and it is specifically targeted at Venezuelan migrants. Iquique is where most undocumented migrants reach from Bolivia.
A fire in Iquique, in the Tarapacá region, has left some 400 Chileans homeless, including 15 injured Monday, but no fatalities were reported. But when things seemed to be getting back to normal, a second fire not far from the previous one added to the locals' nightmare.
Coastal residents of Chile’s far north spent a second sleepless night outside their homes as major aftershocks continued Thursday following a magnitude-8.2 earthquake that damaged several thousand homes and caused six deaths. But no new major damage or casualties were reported, and a heavy police and military presence kept order.
A powerful 7.8-magnitude aftershock hit Chile's far-northern coast on Wednwsday, shaking the same area where a magnitude-8.2 earthquake hit just a day before causing some damage and six deaths.
A strong 8.2-magnitude earthquake has struck off the northwestern coast of Chile, killing at least five people and setting off a small tsunami that prompted evacuations along the country's Pacific coast. Chilean Interior minister Rodrigo Peñalillo confirmed that five people had died, “four are men and a woman in Iquique and Alto Hospicio, caused by heart attack and crushing”.
Last Sunday Chile’s customs agency in the northern Iquique port detained a cargo ship carrying 2,500 Hyundai cars after at least 21 of the cars were found with traces of radioactive contamination.