Kahului. The fatalities of the devastating forest fire that swept through the county of Maui, a town in Hawaii, this week amounted to 89 and it is estimated that more than a thousand people are missing. The incident is possibly the greatest tragedy caused by a natural disaster in the history of this archipelago.
GALLERY: Wildfires in Hawaii, the largest natural disaster tragedy in the state.
Search-and-rescue teams equipped with dogs to detect bodies under the rubble arrived at the scene to track down the victims of what Hawaii Gov. Josh Green called “probably the largest natural disaster in the history of the state.”
In a statement late Saturday, Maui raised the confirmed fatality count to 89. Meanwhile, the number of missing is estimated at more than 1,000, according to county police chief John Pelletier.
The deadliest natural tragedy ever experienced was a tsunami in 1960, which left 61 dead. Authorities hope that as search and rescue efforts progress, the death toll will rise.
The fires have also caused more than 14,000 people to be evacuated from the island of Maui last Wednesday, while nearly 14,500 were transferred to nearby islands this weekend, according to CNN.
Lahaina Mayor Richard Bissen reported that 80 percent of the city was completely destroyed by the flames, fanned by the hurricane. Dora. At the moment it has been confirmed that the flames in the Lahaina area, one of the most touristic in Hawaii and one of the most affected, are 85 percent controlled.
The United States Department of Health and Human Services declared a state of health emergency in Maui, which will allow providing medical care with “greater flexibility” to those affected.
“We will do everything we can to help Hawaii officials respond to the health impacts of the wildfires,” department secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
Experts point out that the conflagrations can affect not only the physical health of the residents, but also the mental health due to the loss of relatives and material goods.
The US Coast Guard reported the rescue of 17 people who were both on the Lahaina boardwalk and in the open sea after fleeing the fire. The operation, which included two boats, was active for about 15 hours.
The inhabitants have warned that there are “corpses floating in the water and on the boardwalk.” “We have been removing people. (…) We are trying to save his life and I feel like we are not getting the help we need,” Kekoa Lansford told CBS.
On the other hand, in Myanmar, hundreds of victims of the heavy rains that hit that Asian country spent Friday night in a monastery waiting for the floods to stop, which have so far left five dead and 48,000 evacuated.
Myanmar experiences heavy rains around the same time each year, but extreme weather events have been taking place around the world in recent weeks, exacerbated by climate change, according to scientists.
