The death toll from the Hawaii fires, the deadliest in more than a century in the United States, now exceeds 100 dead, authorities said on Tuesday, who are still struggling to find victims and now have a mobile morgue on site. the island of Maui.
“101 lives have now been lost,” said the governor of the archipelago, Josh Green, during a television announcement on Tuesday evening. “We are heartbroken by such a loss.
Rescuers and sniffer dogs scouring the rubble of the near-blaze town of Lahaina on the island of Maui still have plenty of ground to cover. They only examined just over a quarter of the area, he said.
Authorities fear the death toll will rise dramatically and have already warned it could double.
Hundreds of people are still missing. Among them, some are gradually located by their relatives as communications are restored on Maui, but others will inevitably join the ranks of the victims of the tragedy.
In Lahaina, which had 12,000 inhabitants before the disaster, the search for bodies is laborious. The fire was so intense in this former capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii that it melted the metal: more than 2,000 buildings were destroyed and many homes were simply reduced to ashes.
Relatives of missing persons are encouraged to take a DNA test to help identify the corpses, which are often unrecognizable.
A mobile morgue arrived on the island of Maui on Tuesday, with several personnel from the American Department of Health, noted an AFP photojournalist. What to facilitate the identification of victims.
A week to the day after the multiple fires that have ravaged Maui, President Joe Biden promised Tuesday to travel to Hawaii “as soon as possible” with his wife Jill.
“I want to make sure we don’t disrupt relief operations,” with the logistics of a presidential trip, said the 80-year-old Democrat, who signed a natural disaster declaration quickly to fund relief and recovery efforts. reconstruction.
The management of the crisis has already caused many controversies and the feeling of abandonment rumbles among some residents.
“What happened, in my opinion, borders on negligence,” Annelise Cochran, a 30-year-old who is one of dozens of Lahaina residents who had to throw themselves into the sea to escape the flames, told AFP. .
“I’m only here because I took care of it myself,” she said.
Surprised by black smoke, like many of her neighbors, the young woman did not receive an alert. Completely taken aback, she spent eight hours in the ocean before being rescued, clinging to a stone wall that left her with numerous scratches on her legs and arms.
During fires, official alerts on television, radio and telephones proved useless for many residents without electricity or network. The alarm sirens remained silent.
An investigation was opened to examine the crisis management.
In Lahaina, some firefighters were also delayed by dry or very low flow hydrants.
The electricity supplier Hawaiian Electric is also the subject of a complaint which accuses it of not having cut the power, despite the high risk of fire and the strong winds fed by a hurricane passing southwest of Maui, likely to knock down electric poles.
These fires come in the middle of a summer marked by extreme events on the planet, linked to global warming according to experts, including mega forest fires in Canada.
Maui is now trying to house the survivors who have lost everything. About 2,000 accommodations (hotel rooms, Airbnb or private accommodation) will be accessible free of charge to locals for a period of at least 36 weeks, according to the authorities.
The reconstruction will take a long time. The cost of the Lahaina fire alone is estimated at $5.52 billion by federal authorities.
08/16/2023 05:47:20 – Kahului (United States) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
