They died together, the flames embraced them: Carla was a bodybuilder and Carmen was a good student

Yherel Paucara, commander of the San José de Chiquitos Police, has been in the area for a year and a half, and this is the first time that He had to be a spectator of something so dramatic and painful.. In the early hours of Sunday, August 18, the neighbors of the Los Hebrews neighborhood called to raise the alarm about a fire, whose flames surpassed the roof of a humble home.

They still did not know that Carla Jimena (17) and Carmen Divina Vía Rosas (15) were trapped inside, already completely charred.

They experienced it firsthand helplessness of not being able to do anything. The explosion ended everything and to recharge the minutes of anguish, There was no good water pressure to try to calm the raging flames of fire.. San José de Chiquitos is going through a drastic drought, and the neighborhood of the two teenagers is one of the most affected. suffers from lack of access to water.

A friend of Roxana Bobadilla, the mother of the young girls, recognizes that the drought is serious: “In that neighborhood, most days there is no water.sometimes at night it goes down a little and You have to pay attention to the tap when the drops fall“This has been going on for a long time, but it is even worse now that we are experiencing the worst drought in recent years.”

“A scolding from our mothers is nothing, who knows if we will be here tomorrow”

On Friday, Carmen and her friend Georgina left school at 11:15, they went to look for some material for classes, but They stayed ‘wandering’ around the town until 12:30. When they realized that the hours had flown by, they were scared, but then Carmen told her partner: “a ‘tease’ from our mothers is nothing, Who knows if tomorrow we will be“.

Who were those young girls? His life was cut short at a very early agewhen life projects are still beginning to form, dreams are drawn and the first experiences are tried out.

Carla Jimena was 17 years old, but she fell behind in school, to the point that the youngest, Carmen Divina, 15, caught up with her. They were both classmates at school. German Buschwere in fourth year of high school. The eldest left school to to dedicate himself to the sport of his passion, weightliftingBut this year he returned.

Her photo in tights, with her hair tied in a bun and concentrated on lifting weights made the rounds on social media, along with the obituary that the Santa Cruz Departmental Association of Bodybuilding and Powerlifting put together for her. It says that He was a reference in the discipline and they regret the passing of the distinguished athlete. In her last competition she came second.

While, Carmen stood out as a good studentshe got excellent grades in mathematics and sports, she was a soccer player, her position was goalkeeper, and in the words of her classmates, “She was very cheerful” and very homely, she rarely went out.

His aunt Claudia, very distressed, explained that his father lives in the countryside, because he makes a living driving tractors and caterpillars, while The mother is a housewife and also makes money by washing clothes.

A painful goodbye too early

The Two white boxes passed through the mission church of San José de Chiquitosthe scene of important tourist and cultural events, where even Queen Sofia of Spain once visited, admiring its Jesuit architecture. Carla and Carmen made their last stop there on Monday, locked in wooden boxes and surrounded by flowers; then they made their way to the school, while the band played the chords of the nostalgic song Más allá del sol.

His high school roommates did not have classes that sad Monday, they went to the funeral, And seeing them in that last goodbye was something they couldn’t digest.. What’s more, they asked the principal to change their classrooms, because they did not want to remain in the same space where their two empty desks were left.

“It’s very hard to ring the bell, enter the class and look where they were sitting and find empty spaces in the third row“, says Georgina, who still can’t believe what happened.

“It’s a death that left us in shock, something like this had never happened here before,” he says.

For now, they are giving a contribution to help the family that has lost practically everything. There are also other initiatives, one municipal and one neighborhood-based, to make the burned-out house habitable.

“We will never forget them”promise his colleagues, who had to experience the feeling of loss and vulnerability at such a young age.

“We’ve never seen anything like this in our town”

“It is a shame that young girls who are just beginning to live, leave in this way, it is something very sad and painful. The whole town was moved, We are still in shock“said the director of the Germán Busch educational unit, Willis Costa Leite.

That’s why they continue campaigning. First They pooled their financial resources to pay for the two coffins. of wood and now they are looking for money for put the house in conditionThey plan to hold a festival to raise more funds.

The Mayor Marbin Barbery Cespedes declared municipal mourning of three calendar days, without suspension of activities, which ended on Wednesday. “Due to the sensitive death of the sisters, Carla Jimena and Carmen Divina Vía Rosas.”

For his part, Costa Leite describes them as regular students. “They did not cause discipline problems, as we have had with other students. and they completed their studies.”

The director went to see the site of the disaster and found that the girls’ house, located on the south side, was uninhabitable. What’s more, they had to hold a wake for them at the home of an uncle, brother of their mother, Roxana Bobadilla.

The latter was deprived of speech due to anguish. His relatives and investigative officers have given their testimony, but repeating what he knows to neighbours or the press is like reliving the pain. He was present at an event held by the Mayor’s Office, when the municipal mourning period was declared, they gave him the microphone and he only apologized for not being able to articulate the words, he limited himself to saying that the pain was too much.

The woman is devastated. She can’t believe the misfortune that happened to them, now He clings to his only surviving daughter, Carolini.eight years old, who was also sleeping at the time of the accident, but who survived because he was in another room.

Unfortunatelyin the girls’ house there was a canister of fuel, and that was what magnified the explosion.

They found rubble and there was nothing to recover.

The structural fire He left nothing recognizable, not even the bodies of the two young girls, This was reported by Commander Paucara.

The house remains sealed off for Crime Scene and Iitcup (Technical Scientific Research Institute of the Police University) continue with the investigations.

“The expert work has already begun, but the hypothesis says that There was a drum filled with fuel near the electrical connection, which caused the fire.“, Paucara reported and the same was repeated by the departmental commander Erick Holguín.

On Thursday, Colonel Silvio Terrazas, national director of the Antofagasta Fire Department, reported that The cause of the accident was determined to be a short circuit.

Paucara acknowledged that it was difficult to put out the fire because The water pressure is not good and was missing in the fateful hours.

The house was actually two rooms made of material. The only thing left standing is a wall.

To the girls They brought them to Santa Cruz de la Sierra on Sunday for the legal autopsy. and at night they returned them for their wake.

They were laid to rest at the mother’s sister-in-law’s house and buried on Monday afternoon at the general cemetery in San José de Chiquitos.

The reality of Jose: there is a lack of water and the crisis has turned the resale of fuel into a business for families

The crisis is both water-related and economic. In the first case, several wells have been drilled, but there is no longer enough water.

Mayor Marbin Barbery is in the socialization stage of a water supply project with institutions, civic groups and neighborhood OTBs.

The need for water for a population that is suffering the effects of drought and forest fires is on one side and on the other, opposite, the Conservation and protection of the Santa Cruz la Vieja National Historical Parkwhich was declared a natural and archaeological heritage site.

The controversy that has arisen is whether it is allowed to install a concrete tank armed with one hundred thousand liters on the area of ​​the Santa Cruz la Vieja museum.

The lack of water is a daily occurrence in neighborhoods like Carmen and Carla’s. When they needed it to put out the flames in their home, it was scarce.

Regarding the economic crisis. In view of the fuel shortage at gas stations, Many residents have chosen to store it in their homes.. Some for personal consumption, and others for resale.

“There are a lot of people here who resell gasoline, even You see minors handling and selling, they don’t know how dangerous it is“, some neighbors admit.

According to the most widespread version, Carla and Carmen put their phones to charge near the container. “They didn’t even have a chance to escape, the flames went beyond the level of the roof,” said Commander Paucara.

After the terrible incident, the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) is taking action on the matter. Together with the Mayor’s Office and the Police, they were visiting homes to prevent the resale of fuel and its storage in homes.

Carmen and Carla are no longer here, nor is their home. What remains is the water crisis, the dangerous practices of water collection and the trauma of a community in which everyone still knows each other and will miss those two young lives.