Fidel Albornoz Farías, ACCDiS Laboratory Technician and, back then, in charge of Dr. Mario Zapata's laboratory, he had to remove together with firefighters the vehicles of academics that were obstructing the passage of the car bombs.

July 2, 1992, a fire destroyed the entire interior of the Luis Ceruti building of the Faculty of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, A tragedy turned into a story of overcoming thanks to the enormous work of civil servants, academics, students and Dean Hugo Zunino, who managed to rebuild this academic unit after the catastrophe that left it in ashes.

Every first of July, The Faculty of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Chile celebrates its anniversary, A solemn day that highlights the progress and achievements of an institution linked to scientific work since its creation in 1945. However, This date was also the preamble to one of the most tragic and destructive events he has experienced: thefire in the Luis Ceruti building, located at Olivos 1007, Independencia.

It started as white smoke at 10 o'clock:00 hours on July 2, 1992, recalls Cecilia Pinchetti, assistant to the current dean of this academic unit and, back then, secretary to the director of the Department of Pharmacological and Toxicological Chemistry. "They told me that they were cleaning the air conditioning ducts, and what did we do?? We close the doors of our offices and continue working”. However, they did not know that its origin came from the reagent warehouse, located in the basement of the building, who was under the effect of the flames.

Inside the building there were about 200 people, including civil servants, Academics and students. Among them wasSoledad Bollo, current vice-dean of the Faculty and, back then, PhD student in Chemistry. Just the day before, she had had her Pharmaceutical Chemistry degree ceremony.

"You couldn't breathe very well in the hallway anymore and, Therefore, I decided to leave the laboratory. I went to look for Don Luis Núñez Vergara – who later became dean of the Faculty – because he worked in a very small office and I went to tell him that I was going to go down because there was smoke in the corridor (…) He left his things, The computer on, his briefcase and put on his jacket because it was July, It was very cold, and that's how we left the building", recalls Bollo.

While some immediately left the building, others remained in their offices and laboratories in the face of what appeared to be only smoke in the corridors. By that time he had arrivedfiremen, who upon seeing the seriousness of the situation called for the immediate evacuation of the entire building using the speakers installed in the secretaries' telephones.

“In my case we come out as is, No wallet, With nothing. We left everything in a hurry. We went down the side of the elevator without having any idea that the fire was running from there. We got down and all the people were running, We didn't see flames, only smoke", Pinchetti relates, who was helped down from the third floor because she encountered tacos.

As the minutes passed, the flames became more and more visible and it was black smoke that reached different parts of the capital.Several passers-by and the media watched in disbelief as colored flames came out of the building, product of contact with different reagents. In the face of the constant explosions of products such as toluene and nitroglycerin drums, Firefighters had to expand the containment cordon.The Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile – just one block from the burning building – began to evacuate patients fearing the worst.

Fidel Albornoz Farías, Laboratory technician and, at that time, in charge of Dr. Mario Sapag's laboratory, He had to remove vehicles from the road that were preventing the arrival of the twelve fire companies that had arrived to fight the flames. "Some academics left their car keys in the laboratories, then parking made it difficult for car bombs to enter. We had to lift the cars with firefighters and move them to enter", recalls Albornoz.

Total Loss and the Task of Rebuilding

The flames lasted for more than ten hours and it was only around ten o'clock at night that firefighters were able to contain the fire. When assessing damage the next day, It was verified that the foundations of the building were intact, but the interior was completely destroyed. The Rector of the time, Jaime Lavados, Visibly dismayed, described this fact as a catastrophe for the University. "Here the damage is worse than the explosion that disabled a part of INTA in March 1991. NowIt is a whole building where the most modern equipment in the country operated for teaching and chemical research" the highest authority of the Casa de Bello told the media outlet Las Ultimas Noticias.

The atmosphere of a faculty that days before celebrated its 47th anniversary with joy, now he saw his current situation with desolation. Here the losses were not only measured in millions of dollars, but also in years of scientific research.At a time when digital backups did not exist, The fire turned a life's work into ashes. "It was impressive to see the post-fire academics wandering around the campus like souls in pain because they had no support from their research.Students who were about to graduate did not have their support What was going to happen to their degree theses or years of work?? Cried, I saw them cry, I saw them get desperate. There was nothing to do, we had to rebuild", Pinchetti points out, who participated in the TECHO commission in charge of administrative reconstruction.

Soledad Bollo recalls that one of the first difficulties was the evaluations.As it was the end of the semester and the evaluations were burned, Many students and academics had an enormous challenge to close the branches. "The minutes were manual and the notes were kept in the teachers' office. Everything went back to square one. There were students who with a test risked 100% of the subject to pass or fail", recalls the now vice-dean.

A figure who stood out in this reconstruction task was that of Dean Hugo Zunino, who had the arduous task of keeping afloat a faculty without its main building, without laboratories and exposed to eventual disappearance if something was not done in time. This is what he points outArturo Squella, former dean of the Faculty of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences in the period 2014-2022. "Imagine that the Faculty was killed, It was a drama. All the people thought that the Faculty could have disappeared. An authority could have said that we were becoming part of another faculty and it would have been a very big crisis.To him (Zunino) the leader in it emerged and transformed this catastrophe into the best project that this Faculty could have had”.

The university union

On April 19, 1995, the Luis Ceruti building of the Faculty of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences was reopened. The work cost $18 million dollars and allowed the reinstallation of the laboratories with cutting-edge scientific instruments. This was possible thanks to a loan from the German state bank KFW and efforts by the German Embassy in Chile.

However, none of this would have been possible if it were not for thehelp from the other academic units that make up the University of Chile.

Faculties such as Medicine, Dentistry, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, among others, provided laboratories, classrooms and offices to Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences while the reconstruction lasted. "I think that shows the spirit of the University of Chile.That is the spirit of the University of Chile, The union that the student has, the academic and the civil servant in all the work that is carried out”, Albornoz points out.

This help even came from other institutions, as Professor Squella recalls, who receivedequipment donations by a researcher from the University of Santiago. "She also spontaneously approached us to offer us equipment, donate electrodes without any interest. We still remember that gesture that researcher from another university had. We were not only like brothers from medicine, but we were university brothers, but from other universities", rate Squella.

If you want to know more details and the full history of the fire, we invite you to listen to chapter 145 of Universidad de Chile Podcast, Available inSpotify, Tantaku, Apple Music and Youtube. HTTPS:open.spotify.com/episode/7i0WtQKZcB8tmQxHde9vj9 

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