Kite-flying is dangerous stuff in Chile

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Mention extreme sports and mountaineering, bungee jumping or white-water rafting come to mind. But in Chile it is kite-flying that causes accidents, claims lives and generates a big official headache. In September and October, when strong winds blow during the southern hemisphere's spring, children and adults crowd the parks and streets of this South American nation, flying simple rectangular kites made from tissue paper. In the capital's working-class playground, the enormous O'Higgins park, coloured squares fill the sky and litter the trees. Dozens of kite clubs set up booths hawking specialised string, enormous wooden spools and other paraphernalia. Packs of boys carrying 4m-long poles run around the parks jostling each other to fish kites out of the sky after they have been cut down by rival kite-flyers using razor-sharp string. On Chile's national independence day on September 18, an estimated four million people venture out with kites - which come as cheap as 27 United States cents (about R2) each - designed as the Chilean flag or the insignia of favourite soccer teams.

But hundreds of children are injured every year in the dangerous seasonal ritual. Kite-flying is not just a family day out but a competitive game in which participants try to cut down other kites using string cured with glue and pulverised glass, giving it a knife-like edge.

In Chile there is an average of one kite-related death per year and hundreds of injuries, according to Mario Reyes of Chile's Safety Association.

Children get electrocuted as their kites become tangled in overhead cables and the string conducts electricity. Others are injured climbing on to roofs, shinnying up electricity poles, falling into holes and darting in front of traffic to retrieve their kites.

"Kites produce a sort of psychosis in children. When a kite is cut there is not one but dozens of children running after it," says Reyes.

Kites have even killed innocent bystanders. Last month, a 19-year-old university student was decapitated as he became entangled in a kite string that crossed the road where he was riding his motorcycle.

Kites are also responsible for 200 power cuts per year which happen when it rains on an overhead cable damaged by a kite, according to Chilectra, an electricity distributor.

Authorities took steps this year to contain the problem, distributing safety information to 11 000 schools.

This year cities designated "safe" areas for kite-lovers. The Safety Association is campaigning to ban cured string and has held public burnings of heaps of the dangerous kite string.

Competitors in professional contests now have to use lightweight cotton string that breaks easily and is cured with ground quartz, which is allegedly safer than glass. - Reuters