Published February 06,2024
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Chilean ex-President Sebastian Pinera died in a helicopter crash on Tuesday within the south of the nation, three sources advised Reuters.
Local media earlier reported the demise of the 74-year-old former president, who served two phrases from 2010-2014 and 2018-2022. Two present authorities officers and a former adviser to Pinera confirmed the studies to Reuters.
The former adviser advised Reuters that Pinera didn’t survive the crash however that three different individuals onboard have been saved.
Government sources cited by news outlet La Tercera mentioned 4 individuals have been touring on the helicopter when it crashed, and that three had been “found by first responders.”
Chile’s nationwide catastrophe company SENAPRAD confirmed {that a} helicopter crash had occurred within the southern city of Lago Ranco and that one particular person had been killed and three individuals injured.
The authorities didn’t instantly identify who was aboard.
Pinera, additionally a profitable businessman, oversaw fast financial progress and a steep fall in unemployment throughout his first 2010 to 2014 presidency, at a time when a lot of Chile’s commerce companions and neighbors have been going through sharply slower progress.
His second presidency from 2018 to 2022 was marked by violent protests in opposition to inequality that led to accusations of human rights violations and ended with the federal government promising to draft a brand new structure.
The two-time president additionally oversaw the nation’s COVID-19 pandemic response, which included one of many quickest vaccination charges on this planet.
One of his first administration’s excessive factors, touted typically by Pinera himself, was the spectacular rescue in 2010 of 33 miners who have been trapped beneath the Atacama desert. The occasion grew to become a world media sensation and was the topic of a 2014 film, “The 33.”
CREDIT CARDS MADE HIS FORTUNE
The son of a outstanding centrist politician, Sebastian Pinera was a Harvard-trained economist who made his fortune introducing bank cards to Chile within the Eighties.
He was additionally a significant shareholder within the flagship airline previously generally known as LAN, native soccer workforce Colo-Colo and a tv station, though he offered most of these holdings when he took over the presidency in March 2010. As of 2024, he was ranked 1,176 on Forbes’ world wealthy record, with a web price of $2.7 billion.
Known to have a pushed and aggressive character, one pal described Pinera as somebody who may very well be a bully, reluctant to delegate duty.
He was additionally a risk-taker who flew his personal helicopter and loved deep-sea diving.
Running for election to the presidency after a spell as a center-right senator, he wooed average voters by portraying himself because the chief of a brand new proper and an entrepreneur who made his fortune with arduous work.
At the identical time, he distanced himself from the 1973-1990 rule of General Augusto Pinochet, when greater than 3,000 suspected leftists have been killed or “disappeared.”
He misplaced his first try on the high job in 2005 to well-liked center-left candidate Michelle Bachelet, however she was barred constitutionally from operating for a second consecutive time period and in 2009 he beat ex-president Eduardo Frei by a small margin.
That ended the 20-year rule of the center-left and fended off the bitter recollections of Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship that had damage the proper in previous elections.
His honeymoon with the voters was short-lived, although, and his stiff method contrasted with the extra amiable Bachelet, who each preceded and succeeded him as president.
Despite plaudits for his authorities’s financial document, many Chileans felt he didn’t do sufficient to sort out deep inequality or deal with inadequacies within the nation’s training system.
Sebastian Pinera was married to Cecilia Morel, with whom he had 4 youngsters.
Source: www.anews.com.tr