Mayor of Los Lagos: Palena will be the new center of government operations

SANTIAGO.- The Mayor the Los Lagos Region, Sergio Galilea, has said that, starting this Monday, the town of Palena will be the new center of government operations following the eruption of the Chaitén volcano.  The majority of public services will also be located in Palena.

“We were in Palena and clearly, starting today, it has become the center of major operations.  National Goods, Housing, and all Agriculture services are already based there, and it is what I am going to address today at the emergency committee meeting”, the Los Lagos authority told Radio ADN.

“It is crucial to organize the town and get Palena up and running and we are transferring the services”, said Galilea. 

Galilea said that one of the governments’s other main concerns is the possibility of repopulating the town of Futaleufú, but added that this could only be accomplished once water service had resumed in the area.  Water service was suspended once again today after the local sanitation company decided that work being done by Argentine-issued machinery was putting the plumbing system at risk.