Driver in Chile runs over and kills six people at festival

SANTIAGO - A driver ploughed into people at a street festival on July 12 in Chile, killing at least six, police said.

The man reportedly lost control of the vehicle at the festival in the coastal city of Vina del Mar, Jorge Guaita, a police official, told AFP.

Another seven people were injured but their lives were not in danger, he said.

Early reports said the driver was speeding on a road running alongside the festival site.

He was detained and will be tested for alcohol consumption, Guaita said.

The driver was an off-duty naval petty officer, the Chilean Navy said.

According to initial police reports, the driver was not under the influence of alcohol but likely lost control due to rain on the road, a regional official said.

Most of the victims were merchants at the fair, he added.

Photographs from the scene showed a white car with a shattered windshield and part of its hood destroyed, surrounded by scraps of clothing, cardboard boxes and other apparent fairground merchandise.

The tragedy “has plunged the entire country into mourning,” President Jose Antonio Kast said in a post on X, expressing his condolences to the families of the victims. AFP