At least six people died and another seven were injured this Sunday after being struck by a vehicle at a fair in Viña del Mar, Chilean police reported.
The driver, for reasons currently under investigation, “reportedly lost control” and struck people on the side of the Caupolicán fair, said Carabineros Colonel Jorge Guaita, of the Viña del Mar Prefecture, about 120 km west of Santiago. “There are six people deceased at this moment. And we have seven injured people, none in life-threatening condition, fortunately,” Guaita specified in a message sent to the AFP agency.
A white vehicle shows damage to its rear after hitting several people in Chile, an event that left at least six dead.
A speeding vehicle that ended up overturned
According to information gathered by Chilean media, the incident occurred after 8:40 in the morning on Alessandri Avenue, in the Gómez Carreño sector. According to witness accounts collected by the Carabineros, an SUV-type vehicle was speeding, drove onto the sidewalk, and overturned before entering the fairgrounds, where it struck pedestrians and vendors present. According to the presidential delegate of Valparaíso, Manuel Millones, there were between 100 and 120 people at the scene at the time of the accident, and the vehicle’s movement only stopped upon crashing into a public transport bus stop.
The authorities confirmed that the six deceased are three men and three women, all adults. Among the injured are two infants—eight-month-old twins, according to some media outlets—who have minor injuries and, along with the rest of those affected, were taken to the Gustavo Fricke Hospital in Viña del Mar. All the injured are out of life-threatening danger.
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The driver, arrested and subjected to examinations
The driver was arrested by Carabineros, in some cases with the prior intervention of the market vendors themselves, who subdued him at the scene before handing him over to the police. He will undergo a breathalyzer test and blood tests to determine if he was driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. According to Colonel Guaita, the first breath test performed on the detainee—an “intoxilyzer”—yielded a negative result, although the authorities did not rule out the possibility that he was under the influence of other substances, pending the blood tests. Delegate Millones also specified that the man had no prior criminal record.
Carabineros personnel are working on the investigation of the mass hit-and-run recorded at the Caupolicán fair in Viña del Mar (Archive)
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Officers from the SIAT (Traffic Accident Investigation Section) are conducting the corresponding expert reports to reconstruct the dynamics of the collision, while the Legal Medical Service will be in charge of removing the bodies.
A high-traffic place
As noted by the presidential delegate of Valparaíso, the Caupolicán fair is a “very populous and massive” space, with nearly one thousand vendors, although the flow of the public at the time of the accident was still lower than during peak hours. “From 10:00 to 12:00 it would have been a major disaster,” warned Millones. Emergency teams from the Fire Department, SAMU, Carabineros, Senapred, and personnel from the Viña del Mar municipality worked in the operation.
