By: Alyssa Hong
Hawaii Governor Josh Green dubbed the Maui wildfires the “worst natural disaster that Hawaii has ever faced” after the death toll reached 93 early on Sunday.
Four days after a quick-moving fire destroyed the historic tourist town of Lahaina, melting cars and obliterating buildings, the extent of the damage became clearer on Saturday.
Green expressed dismay about the extent of the destruction.“We can only wait and support those who are living. Our focus now is to reunite people when we can and get them housing and get them healthcare, and then turn to rebuilding,” he stated.
The number of casualties in what is already the worst US wildfire in more than a century is expected to increase in the coming days, according to the authorities. “We pick up the remains and they fall apart … When we find our family and our friends, the remains that we’re finding is through a fire that melted metal,” Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said.
He claimed that so far, just two of the dead individuals have been identified.
“We’ve got an area that we have to contain that is at least five square miles and it is full of our loved ones,” Pelletier added, noting that the death toll is likely to grow and “none of us really know the size of it yet.”
Dogs combed the debris, and their sporadic barks—used to notify their handlers of a potential corpse—echoed across the scorching, desolate countryside. The island was equipped with sirens that were supposed to sound in the event of a natural disaster, but never did, and other means of notifications were complicated by widespread power and telecommunications failures.
After several locals questioned whether more might have been done to warn them before the fire overtook their homes, officials promised to study the state’s emergency communication systems. To escape the flames, some were forced to wade into the Pacific Ocean.
“So far, at least 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed in West Maui”, Mr Green said, of which 86 per cent were residential. “Across the island”, he added, damage was estimated at close to $6bn. He said it would take “an incredible amount of time to recover.”