AKIPRESS.COM - A large fire broke out in the coastal Chilean city of Valparaiso on Monday evening, burning at least 100 homes, prompting the evacuation of about 400 people and sending plumes of smoke high into the air.

Chilean Interior Minister Mahmud Aleuy said in televised remarks that 19 people had been slightly injured and a total of 500 homes were at risk. Power was initially cut to about 47,000 customers in the region, but had been restored to all but 350, he said, Reuters reports.

Almost 50 fire brigades from Valparaiso and neighboring municipalities were deployed to fight the blaze, and investigators had been sent in to determine the cause of the fire which started in a fishermen's club, according to the government.

Images on social media showed huge brown-gray columns of smoke emanating from a neighborhood high in one of the city's hills, and pouring into the sky out over the Pacific Ocean.

Authorities said the blaze was fanned by gusty winds and high temperatures. Poor sanitation was also to blame as the fire fed on trash deposited in small ravines that run throughout Valparaiso.

A drought in central Chile caused a record number of forest fires in the area last year, wreaking havoc on Chile's key forestry industry and forcing evacuations in recent weeks near the capital, Santiago, about 60 miles (100 km) southeast of Valparaiso.

A scenic, but gritty port city of 285,000, Valparaiso is the center of a metropolitan area of about 1 million, the second largest urban district in Chile.

Built on steep hillsides in an area covered in pines, many of the city's wooden structures are susceptible to fire, especially in the poorer neighborhoods higher in the hills.