The number of people killed by the fires that have ravaged the Hawaiian island of Maui since last Tuesday rose to 93 this Saturdaysaid the governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, during a tour of one of the areas affected by the flames.
(Read here: Photos: before and after the island of Maui due to the fires in Hawaii)
“There have been 93 deaths. It’s going to continue to rise. We want to prepare people for that,” Green said in a video posted on his X (formerly Twitter) social network account.
🇺🇸 | Everything around it was destroyed by the fires that ripped through Maui, Hawaii, but only this church was left intact. 🙏🏻⛪️ pic.twitter.com/vlkHTgKDlk
– World Alert (@ AlertaMundial2) August 13, 2023
After announcing the new number of victims, the state president pointed out that the fires in Maui become the deadliest in the last century in the United States.
Before the new death toll was known, the Hawaii Department of Transportation announced the closure of a runway at the main airport on the island of Maui, Kahului, to accommodate receiving help in the fight against the fires, which have also displaced more than 1,400 people.
In a message on the X social network, the authority said it will close a “short” runway to receive assistance, which will not affect commercial flights but will have an impact “on general aviation.”
A total of 1,418 people are in the six temporary shelters set up to care for those affected by the most serious natural tragedy that the US archipelago has experienced in its history, also according to official data on Friday.There are still several active pockets on the island and firefighters continue to work to extinguish fires in Lahaina, Pulehu/Kihei and Upcountry Maui.
Before and after images show the scale of the damage in Lahaina, a historic town on Maui’s western coast that was ravaged by the deadliest wildfires in Hawaii’s history this week. Recovery is expected to take years, authorities said. https://t.co/c7TkkrhZqi pic.twitter.com/V5GqkrJvI7
—The New York Times (@nytimes) August 11, 2023
The victim’s story
Vilma Reed only knew that a ferocious fire was approaching her hometown in Hawaii when she saw the flames just yards from her home.
Like many who escaped bare-clothed from the raging inferno that swept through the resort town of Lahaina, Maui, Reed received no notice, no evacuation order, no warning sirens.
“Do you know when we found out there was a fire? When it was across our street,” Reed told AFP in the parking lot of the Maui War Memorial Complex, adapted as a shelter for victims of the tragedy that has already claimed 93 deaths. .
“The mountain behind us caught fire and nobody warned us!” Reed claimed. The 63-year-old woman, who walks with the aid of a cane, dragged her daughter, her grandson and her two cats into her car and fled out of town. “I sped through a line of fire to get my family out,” she recounted.
The cause of the terrible fire is under investigation, but experts affirm that its rapid spread was favored by circumstances such as the abundance of non-native plants, the volcanic topography that favored dry winds down the slope, an unusually dry winter and a hurricane a few kilometers to the southwest..
Do you know when we found out there was a fire? When she was across our street
But for a state that is no stranger to natural catastrophes—Hawaii has earthquakes, active volcanoes, a history of tsunamis, and is regularly hit by powerful tropical storms—the lack of warning from authorities causes bewilderment and leads many to the wrath.
“We underestimated the dangerousness and the speed of the fire,” Jill Tokuda, a Democratic Party lawmaker from Hawaii, admitted to CNN on Saturday.
“It’s not that hurricane force winds are unheard of in Hawaii, or dry brush, or red alert conditions. We saw this before with (Hurricane) Lane. We didn’t learn our lesson from Lane (in 2018) – that brush fires can blow up as a result of hurricane force winds,” Tokuda said.
The fire knocked out power to Lahaina residents, who have told the media they had no signal on their cell phones, a channel authorities use when they want to alert citizens of danger.
The same power outage could, no doubt, have limited the ability of residents to watch television or listen to the radio, two other channels where these types of official warnings are issued.
But louder outdoor warning sirens meant to alert islanders to the danger did not sound, the Hawaii Emergency Services Administration (HI-EMA) said on Friday.
“Neither Maui nor HI-EMA activated warning sirens on Maui during the wildfire,” the agency said, according to NBC News. Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said it was still “too early” to say that the silence of the sirens was a technical glitch or a deliberate decision by the operators.
“We still don’t know what really happened (with the sirens),” Maui Fire Chief Brad Ventura acknowledged Saturday. Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez announced Friday the opening of an investigation into the fire, including making “critical decisions” as the fire spread.
AFP and EFe
#Fires #Hawaii #leave #dead #deadliest #century