Helicopters dropped tons of water to extinguish wildfires still raging in central Chile today, as firefighters described to Reuters how they were retrieving bodies buried in the rubble of buildings, three days after the blazes broke out.

The official death toll from Chile’s worst natural disaster in years now stands at 122 and is expected to rise as residents, firefighters and the military race against time to clear the debris.

Wildfires raged on Friday and spread to residential areas in the coastal cities of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, with flames engulfing homes within minutes.

“It’s like a war zone, like a bomb went off,” said Jacqueline Atenas, 63, who left her home in Villa Independencia on Friday and returned today to face the debris, carrying a small pink bag, the only thing she could manage to save.

“It was burning as if someone had poured gasoline on the houses. I don’t understand what happened… There were gale force winds blowing, lots of wind and big fireballs were being hurled.”

Further down the same street, Luis Parra said that at the last minute he managed to escape with his wife and their grandchildren. Once he saw flames reaching his home, the power went out and they couldn’t open the garage to drive away.

They managed to get into a friend’s car and drive away. But his sister and blind father died. Their bodies were found a block away from their home.

“We never thought this could happen,” Parra said.

“So many dead”

Other residents in Villa Independencia, Viña del Mar, described a lightning-moving inferno.

Ingrid Crespo, 59, said she first saw the fire from a distance on Friday, then flames leaping from hill to hill.

“Sparks were flying and the wind was blowing like a hurricane,” Crespo said. She started pouring water on the roof of her house when she saw the flames invading, but it was too late.

She left without taking anything with her, only the clothes she was wearing. Many of her neighbors were killed. Her cat and dog were burned.

“When my son came on Sunday, there were dead bodies everywhere,” Crespo said. “There were so many dead.”

As of today, two days of mourning came into effect in Chile. Hundreds of people are missing and about 14,000 homes have been destroyed, officials say.

Footage taken by the Reuters news agency with a drone in Viña del Mar shows entire areas burned to the ground and residents frantically searching through the rubble of their homes.

Last night, Deputy Interior Minister Manuel Monsalve said 165 fires were still burning, up from 154 on Saturday. Authorities imposed a curfew in the worst-hit areas and the army was sent in to help firefighters put out the fire.