CHILE: Holiday Disaster

The fire may have been touched off by a holiday firecracker. It broke out early on New Year's Day in a waterfront lumberyard in Valparaiso, Chile's chief port and second city (pop. 240,000). Merrymakers gathered in thousands to watch as the flames roared through five huge stacks of lumber and spread to a few nearby buildings. It was a spectacular New Year's show. But within an hour, cheered on by their wives and children behind the police cordons, the firemen (volunteers, like all Chilean bomberos) seemed to be getting the blaze under control, and the watching crowds began to...

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