A raging wildfire that swept through a picturesque town on the Hawaiian island of Maui this week has killed at least 93 people-- making it the deadliest US wildfire of the past century. The newly released figure surpassed the toll of the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, which left 85 dead and destroyed the town of Paradies. According to media reports, a century earlier, the 1918 Cloquet Fire broke out in drought-stricken northern Minnesota and raced through a number of rural communities, destroying thousands of homes and killing hundreds.
The new death toll Saturday came as federal emergency workers with axes and cadaver dogs picked through the aftermath of the blaze, marking the ruins of homes with a bright orange X for an initial search and HR when they found human remains. Dogs worked the rubble, and their occasional bark — used to alert their handlers to a possible corpse — echoed over the hot and colourless landscape.
Governor predicts death toll will rise furhter
The inferno that swept through the centuries-old town of Lahaina on Maui’s west coast four days earlier torched hundreds of homes and turned a lush, tropical area into a moonscape of ash. The state’s governor predicted more bodies would be found.
“It’s going to rise,” Gov. Josh Green remarked Saturday as he toured the devastation on historic Front Street. “It will certainly be the worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced. ... 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 health care, and then turn to rebuild.” Those who escaped counted their blessings, thankful to be alive as they mourned those who didn’t make it.
4,500 people are in need of shelter
Emergency managers in Maui were searching for places to house people displaced from their homes. As many as 4,500 people are in need of shelter, county officials said on Facebook early Saturday, citing figures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Pacific Disaster Center.
Flyovers by the Civil Air Patrol counted 1,692 structures destroyed — almost all of them residential. Nine boats sank in Lahaina Harbor, officials determined using sonar.
The wildfires are the state’s deadliest natural disaster in decades, surpassing a 1960 tsunami that killed 61 people. An even deadlier tsunami in 1946, which killed more than 150 on the Big Island, prompted the development of a territory-wide emergency alert system with sirens that are tested monthly.
Hawaii emergency management records do not indicate the warning sirens sounded before the fire hit the town. Officials sent alerts to mobile phones, televisions and radio stations, but widespread power and cellular outages may have limited their reach.
Fueled by a dry summer and strong winds from a passing hurricane, the wildfires on Maui raced through parched brush covering the island.
(With inputs from AP)
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