The fires that have ravaged the maui islandin the Hawaiian archipelago, this week they already leave 93 dead, according to the latest figures published this Sunday by the authorities, who warned that the search for the deceased is in its initial stage and the worst is yet to come. At least hundreds of people are still missing.
The chief of the Maui Police department, John Pelletier, said at a press conference on Saturday that the recovery and ID of victims is still in its initial stage, so the death toll will increase.
“None of us really know its size yet,” said Pelletier, who recalled that the greatest devastation is in the west of the Hawaiian island, where cities like Lahaina have been almost completely destroyed.
hundreds missing
Although the authorities are being cautious when it comes to giving a figure, Pelletier himself estimated last Thursday at around 1,000 people the number of disappeared, people who until now had not been located by their relatives, a figure that has not been confirmed again. update.
Pelletier estimated that until this Saturday only 3% of the affected area had been inspected: “We are going as fast as we can, but we have only been able to reach 3%, that is what the dogs have been looking for.”
On the Hawaiian island, search troops equipped with dogs are trying to find corpses among the ashes Pelletier noted that the heat and the humidity Maui are probably slowing down the work of the dogs: “We can only go as fast as the animal can go,” he said.
Also the ID Of the bodies found, progress is slow and so far only two have been identified, although their identity has not yet been made public.
According to the latest report released this Sunday by the County of Maui, firefighting crews continue to try to put out outbreaks in the Lahaina and Upcountry Maui fires, while the Pulehu/Kīhei fire was completely extinguished this Saturday.
Displaced to shelters
The fires, which started on the 8th, have displaced thousands of people and a total of 1,418 are in one of the six temporary shelters that have been set up.
This Saturday, the governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, toured some of the affected areas and later warned that the death toll “will continue to increase.” “We want to prepare people for that,” said the Democratic politician, who recalled that these fires have become the deadliest in the last century in USA.
Thus, the death toll from the Maui fires has surpassed the 85 people who died in the 2018 Camp Fires in California.
“This is the largest natural disaster we’ve ever experienced” and “it will be a natural disaster that will take an incredible amount of time to recover from,” he said.
While taking stock of the damages, which could exceed 6,000 million dollars, possible failures are also beginning to be analyzed. When the fires broke out and Maui lost power and communications, Hawaii’s alarm system, the world’s largest, did not go off, according to authorities.
For this reason, the attorney general of Hawaii, Anne Lopez, announced yesterday that she will carry out a “thorough investigation” into the response of the authorities to the catastrophe.
“My department is committed to understanding the decisions that were made before and during the wildfires and to sharing the results of this review with the public,” he said.
