At Least 4 Killed, 15 Missing in Chile Mudslides

Damage done by a landslide is seen in Villa Santa Lucia, Los Lagos, Chile December 16, 2017 in this still image obtained from social media. (Reuters)
Damage done by a landslide is seen in Villa Santa Lucia, Los Lagos, Chile December 16, 2017 in this still image obtained from social media. (Reuters)
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At Least 4 Killed, 15 Missing in Chile Mudslides

Damage done by a landslide is seen in Villa Santa Lucia, Los Lagos, Chile December 16, 2017 in this still image obtained from social media. (Reuters)
Damage done by a landslide is seen in Villa Santa Lucia, Los Lagos, Chile December 16, 2017 in this still image obtained from social media. (Reuters)

At least four people were killed on Saturday and over a dozen missing following mudslides that were triggered by heavy rain, officials said.

Rain caused a river to overflow and the side of a hill to collapse, burying 20 of the 200 houses in Villa Santa Lucia in the Los Lagos region, located 790 miles (1,272 kilometers) south of Chile's capital, Santiago.

A video taken from a helicopter by Chilean police showed a vast swath of the remote town buried beneath the mud as the landslide plowed its way down a flooded river valley.

Earlier Saturday, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Madmud Aleuy said there were three people dead, including an unidentified tourist.

Rescue workers were continuing to search through the debris for at least 15 people.

President Michelle Bachelet declared the region a catastrophe zone and confirmed the number of dead and missing.

“I have ordered rescue workers to put all the necessary resources toward protecting the people of Villa Santa Lucia,” she said on social media.

She met with her team of ministers to coordinate rescue and assistance efforts.

Some of the injured were taken by helicopter to medical centers.

Two families were evacuated because of a fire caused by the slide, authorities said. Water and electricity service to the area was knocked out.

The alert level in the area had been raised to red because of the persistent rains.

The mudslide also destroyed a school and several homes and roadways as well as a voting center ahead of Chile’s presidential election on Sunday.

More than 4.5 inches (11.4 cm) of rain fell in 24 hours, the country’s Interior Ministry said, but weather conditions were expected to improve later in the day.

Villa Santa Lucia borders Chile’s Corcovado National Park, a popular tourist region of volcanoes, fjords and vast forests.

The nearby Chaiten volcano erupted in 2008, forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents.



French Intelligence Chief: No Certainty on Whereabouts of Iran’s Uranium Stocks

An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
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French Intelligence Chief: No Certainty on Whereabouts of Iran’s Uranium Stocks

An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)

France's intelligence chief said on Tuesday that all aspects of Iran's nuclear program have been pushed back several months after American and Israeli air strikes, but there is uncertainty over where its highly-enriched uranium stocks are.

"The Iranian nuclear program is the material, it is highly-enriched uranium, it is a capacity to convert this uranium from the gaseous phase to the solid phase. It is the manufacturing of the core and it is the delivery," Nicolas Lerner, who heads the DGSE intelligence service, told LCI television.

"Our assessment today is that each of these stages has been very seriously affected, very seriously damaged and that the nuclear program, as we knew it, has been extremely delayed, probably many months."

Lerner, who was speaking for the first time on national television, said a small part of Iran's highly-enriched uranium stockpile had been destroyed, but the rest remained in the hands of the authorities.

"Today we have indications (on where it is), but we cannot say with certainty as long as the IAEA does not restart its work. It's very important. We won't have the capacity to trace it (the stocks)," Lerner said.

Other intelligence assessments have also suggested that Iran retains a hidden stockpile of enriched uranium and the technical capacity to rebuild.

Lerner echoed those comments saying there was a possibility Iran could press ahead with a clandestine program with smaller enrichment capacities.

"That's why France is so attached to finding a diplomatic solution to this nuclear crisis," he said.