© REUTERS/ Sofia Yanjari

VINA DEL MAR, Chile – The death toll from wildfires raging across central Chile hit 122 on Monday as helicopters dumped tons of water on blazes and emergency crews told Reuters they were still finding bodies buried in the wreckage three days after the fires took hold. The toll from Chile’s worst natural disaster in years was expected to climb further as residents, firefighters and military raced to clear rubble in residential areas of the coastal cities of Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar where fireballs consumed houses within minutes. “It’s like a war zone, as if a bomb went off,” said Jacqueline Atenas, 63, who fled her home in nearby Villa Independencia on Friday. “It burned like someone was throwing gasoline on the houses. I don’t understand what happened… There was a lot of wind, a lot of wind and big balls of fire that would fly by.”