The death toll from the devastating fires that nearly leveled a tourist town in the Hawaiian archipelago continues to rise and has now reached at least 53 dead, according to authorities, who fear that the disaster is one of the deadliest in the world. history of this American state. Maui County said in a statement that it had “an additional 17 deaths” as of midday. “This brings the death toll to 53 victims,” ??he added.
This toll could rise further: it could “far exceed” the 60 victims, warned the governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, on CNN. The fires would then become the worst disaster experienced by the archipelago since it became the 50th state of the United States in 1959. A press conference is scheduled for later Thursday to provide an update on relief operations.
Fueled by strong winds, fed by the force of Hurricane Dora which is currently passing through the Pacific Ocean, the fires mainly affect the island of Maui and to a lesser extent that of Hawaii. The resort town of Lahaina, on Maui’s west coast, was virtually burned to the ground.
The governor, who went there, described scenes of “total devastation” in this historic city, the former capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 19th century, “80%” destroyed. Authorities now count “more than 1,700 buildings” destroyed or damaged by the flames, he said.
“It looks like a war zone there,” Brandon Wilson, a tourist evacuating Maui, told Agence France Presse. “It’s really as if someone came and bombed the whole city, everything is completely devastated, completely charred. The blaze that caught the town by surprise is now 80 percent under control, authorities said, and two other fires are still ongoing on the island of Maui.
In Lahaina, the fire spread so quickly that about 100 residents jumped into the sea to escape the flames, according to the Coast Guard. On the spot, the locals count the dead bodies and grow impatient. “We’re trying to save lives and I don’t feel like we’re getting the help we need,” Lahaina resident Kekoa Lansford said. “We still see dead bodies floating in the water and on the dikes,” he added.
President Joe Biden has signed a natural disaster declaration, which will unlock significant federal aid to fund relief, emergency shelter and reconstruction efforts. Thousands of people were evacuated from the disaster areas to emergency centers or Maui’s main airport. The authorities are currently asking tourists to leave the island and are organizing buses to exfiltrate them.
The airport was crowded, Thursday at midday, without being chaotic, noted a journalist from Agence France Presse. Many tourists lined up to board, while volunteers handed out water, sodas and sandwiches.
According to the PowerOutage site, around 11,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity on Thursday in the archipelago. While fires aren’t unusual in Hawaii, they “are burning over a larger area than usual, and fire behavior is extreme, with rapid spread and high flames,” Dr. Thomas Smith said. , Associate Professor of Environmental Geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
He spoke of conditions conducive to the blaze this year: “particularly parched” vegetation on Maui, below-average rainfall this spring, and higher-than-usual temperatures.
Not to mention the impact of the hurricane, yet located hundreds of kilometers to the southwest, and a depression to the west, near Japan, which help to feed the winds, he said. “It’s unusual for this time of year” and it’s causing “very fast fires,” he concluded.
“These fires and any severe storms that we continue to see are undoubtedly caused by what is happening with rising temperatures around the world,” a White House spokesperson said. “And we have to take this seriously,” John Kirby told CNN.
