The 74-year-old billionaire tycoon died in a crash on the standard Lago Ranco trip spot in southern Chile.
Former Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, a billionaire tycoon who twice held the South American nation's prime publish, has died in a helicopter crash, his workplace stated in a press release.
“It’s with deep remorse that we announce the demise of the previous president of the Republic of Chile,” the assertion stated on Tuesday, including that Pinera, 74, had died within the standard vacation resort of Lago Ranco, about 920 km ( 570 km). miles) south of Santiago.
The Minister of the Inside of Chile, Carolina Toha, confirmed the demise of the previous president. No additional particulars have been instantly launched about the reason for the accident.
Chile's nationwide catastrophe company SENAPRAD confirmed that one particular person had been killed and three folks injured. The federal government didn’t instantly identify who was on board.
Pinera, additionally a profitable businessman, oversaw speedy financial development and a pointy drop in unemployment throughout his first presidency from 2010 to 2014, at a time when lots of Chile's buying and selling companions and neighbors have been dealing with sharply slower development.
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 jot down a brand new structure.
Pinera was the proprietor of the fifth largest fortune in Chile, estimated at about $3 billion. He has labored as an instructional in a number of universities for nearly 20 years and as a marketing consultant for the Inter-American Growth Financial institution and the World Financial institution.
As a businessman within the Seventies to Nineteen Nineties, he labored in quite a lot of industries, together with actual property. He had shares in main airways and in telecommunications, actual property and electrical energy firms. He additionally created one of many largest bank card firms within the nation. In 2009, he gave the administration of his firms to others.
He entered politics representing the middle proper, which was the civilian help of the navy regime. On the identical time, he distanced himself from the 1973-1990 rule of Common Augusto Pinochet, when greater than 3,000 suspected leftists have been killed or “disappeared.”
Piñera ran for president of Chile 3 times. In 2006, he misplaced to the socialist Michelle Bachelet; then in 2010, he defeated former president Eduardo Frei. 4 years after his first time period, in 2018, he gained a second four-year time period after defeating a left-wing impartial.
Twelve days earlier than the beginning of his first mandate, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake and tsunami claimed the lives of 525 folks and devastated the infrastructure of south-central Chile.
The agenda of the federal government of Pinera was postponed to take up the emergency reconstruction. In 2010, he additionally led the unprecedented rescue of 33 miners trapped for 69 days on the backside of a mine within the Atacama desert, which captured the world's consideration.
The occasion grew to become a world media sensation and was the topic of a 2014 movie, The 33.
He closed his administration after creating about 1,000,000 jobs.
