The Chilean state has given up its search for Fruticola Atacama worker Jennifer Novoa, but since disaster struck three weeks ago the company has taken rescue and relief efforts into its own hands. Two company managers tell www.freshfruitportal.com they are looking to contract their own specialty search squad, as part of an ongoing and distressing task that began on March 25 when an unprecedented flood plowed through a worker camp next to one of their grape farms. 

"Firstly I'd like to emphasize that our facilities in the Capilla sector in the farm Viña del Cerro in San Antonio suffered from a flood of magnitudes no one had considered would occur, due to rain during a period of high temperatures where the precipitation was liquid at high altitudes," says Fruticola Atacama's manager for the Copiapó zone, Horacio Parra Sabaj.

"It was a flood that produced a massive embankment that covered our facilities. We suffered the loss of the general administrator's house, workshops and phytosanitary warehouses, and the lodging modules for men and women were pulled out where 200 people were living.

"This started at 2:30am when the people were sleeping in their rooms. It was raining in the dark, and all the escape techniques that had been implemented were applied."

He says risk evaluations had previously been done for earthquakes and fires, but not for floods.

"The majority of the people were saved - today we have one worker who died, and a worker who we still haven’t been able to find. We continue to look for her with her family.

Click here for more stories relating to recent floods in northern Chile and their impact on the country's produce sector.

Parra and his team were cautious prior to the interview, after social media networks and Chilean press outlets reported the company allegedly had kept female workers padlocked inside a container; a claim that was proven false and received criticism from Minister of the Interior Mahmud Aleuy who told TVN every rumor "implies resources".

While dealing with the damage the imputation caused to his reputation late last month, Parra was still dealing with the crisis at hand.

"When this flood happened the camp zone was isolated by land without connection for three days; everything was cut off and there was no communication with phones or radio.

"That same Wednesday we contracted a medical rescue helicopter, and went to pick up all of the people who were injured as a result of the flood. Then on Thursday we had four more flights and on Friday there were two more."

After two flights had been completed, Parra called the regional director of national emergency services agency Onemi, asking for help.

"He told me there were other priorities at that time, which were Chañaral, Alto del Carmen and Vallenar," Parra says.

"I asked if he could give me a satellite phone to put there with the people and communicate with them, but he told me they didn’t have satellite phones; he offered me a radio, but that didn't work as the radio towers were down."

He highlighted that while the workers were cut off, there was another camp still intact not too far away with food, clothes and warm water, while in the other direction there was a church that served as a refuge for workers and others from the community.

After the helicopter rescue, Parra says the next task was to take people back to their hometowns in buses.

"On Friday we dispatched many buses to their cities like La Serena, San Felipe, Los Andes and Santiago. The last bus left on Monday because it was for Arica, and the highway north had been cut off in Chañaral and there was no connectivity.

"We were also very concerned with being able to attend to the injured, and for those people with medical issues we are maintaining their salaries while they recover. The rest of people had their settlements paid," he says, adding the payments were made for the period to March 30, along with an additional sum for goods lost in the disaster.

He says the helicopter took in about 14 injured people, of which around six are still recovering.

The missing or deceased

Amidst the disconnected reality of the rescue effort, Parra says it was difficult to immediately define how many people were missing at first, as some workers found their way home of their own accord.

"When we started to have clarity about the situation, we calculated the amount of missing people at seven; five men and two women," he says.

That number now stands at one, Novoa, as well as the deceased, Peruvian national Sandy Bernal Nieto.

"For the family of the deceased woman we are giving all our support, and we have been with them permanently. Their family also works with us; not in the same farm but on a different field.

"She was Peruvian but totally legalized in Chile to work – another rumor that went around was that we hired illegal people."

He says Fruticola Atacama also helped the family pay for funeral costs, however Chilean health services would not allow Bernal's body to be taken to Peru.

"So, she was buried here in Copiapo, and in a couple of years we’ll be able to send her body to Peru with the family," he says.

"Also, Fruticola Atacama had insurance committed to compensate the family for her death."

Regarding Novoa, Parra says her aunt has been brought up from southern Chile near Concepcion, and is staying at a company camp while the search continues; a search that Fruticola Atacama plans to take up a notch in the government's absence.

"The state’s not looking for her anymore – in fact we are looking to contract a rescue brigade on our account; we are doing it now with our own workers but specialized people like firemen or the military are not looking for her."

A long road to recovery

In terms of operations, Parra says around 40 hectares of plantations have witnessed losses of 100% of their production.

Horacio Parra (left) and Mario von Chrismar (right)

"There used to be vines but now what you see is like a beach. Everything was taken in the flood. Apart from the damages to infrastructure and our operations, there are two workshops where all our machinery has been lost," he says.

Operations manager Mario Von Chrismar adds it could be two years before the company can produce on those hectares.

"The total loss for us is large. We haven't placed any numbers, but with the 40 hectares we've lost we don’t have any insurance for our vines, and there's also the 100,000 boxes of grapes we lost.

"You have to look at the direct impact of what you lost today, but the other thing is what you won’t be able to produce for three years while you recover," he says, adding the total damage to the zone's grape farms is likely more than the US$50 million estimated by the National Agriculture Society (SNA).

Parra says that if he had to estimate the damage for his company, including lost production for the coming years, it would be at least US$10 million.

"You know that any hectare you had won’t be able to produce, and you also know the cost of investing in it again," he says.

"We still don't know the impact on what has remained, if we have three weeks without having irrigated, and we could reach a month in some cases without irrigating - how will that affect the next flowering?"

Meanwhile, he says Fruticola Atacama has only recently started irrigating its farms again, although two wells are damaged and there is still no access via channels to river water; the latter source makes up around 10% of the company's irrigation supply, and while authorities have forecast it could be back on-line by April 25, the group will have to assess whether the water is still appropriate given the damages to infrastructure.

"A lot of the networks that bring water from the wells or the river to the tanks, were in the open air and filled up [with sediment], and we have two tanks that have been covered to the top."

To finish the discussion, the two managers urge importers overseas to lend a hand wherever possible, emphasizing the region will continue to supply high quality grapes around the world.

"It's important that importers in some way try to help the people of the Atacama region; there are people who need to rebuild their homes, and I think it'd be great if they could help the workers in the Atacama region who have suffered a lot," says Parra.

"For us, as a group we will work to keep growing. Everyone will be making a titanic effort, so help for people would be very welcome. The region of Atacama will lift up."

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