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 identified “17 additional deaths” at midday. “This brings the death toll to 53.”
This toll could increase further: it could “far exceed” the 60 victims, warned the governor of Hawaii, Josh Green, on CNN. The fires would then establish themselves as the worst disaster experienced by the archipelago since it became the 50e State of the United States, in 1959.
A press conference is scheduled for later Thursday to provide an update on the relief operations.
Fueled by high winds and nurtured by hurricane force Dorawhich 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, located on Maui’s west coast, was all but burned to the ground.
The governor, who went there, described scenes of “total devastation” observed in this historic city, capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 19th century.e century, “80%” destroyed.
The authorities now identify “more than 1,700 buildings” destroyed or damaged by the flames, he said.
“War Zone”
“It looks like a war zone there,” Brandon Wilson, a tourist evacuating Maui, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). It’s really as if someone had come and bombed the whole city, everything is devastated, completely charred. »
The fire that surprised the city is now 80% contained, according to authorities, but two other fires are still ongoing on the island of Maui.
In Lahaina, the fire spread so quickly that about 100 residents threw themselves into the sea to escape the flames, according to the Coast Guard.
On the spot, the inhabitants 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,” said Lahaina resident Kekoa Lansford.
President Joe Biden has signed a declaration of natural disaster, which will allow elected officials to release 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. Authorities are currently asking tourists to leave the island and are organizing bus trips to get them out.
The airport was crowded Thursday at midday, without being chaotic, noted an AFP journalist. Many tourists lined up to board, while volunteers handed out water, sodas and sandwiches.
What relieve a little Lorraina Peterson, who has just spent three days stuck in his hotel room as a honeymoon.
Without electricity and without the Internet, “we were completely helpless,” she told AFP.
“Even at the hotel, they didn’t know what was going on,” she added, saying she was “sad for the people who lost their homes.”
According to the PowerOutage site, around 11,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity on Thursday in the archipelago.
The fires have spread rapidly due to Maui’s “particularly parched” vegetation, which has seen below-average spring rainfall and higher-than-usual temperatures, according to environmental geography professor Thomas Smith. at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
This disaster comes after a series of extreme weather events that have affected just about every region of the world this summer.
Massive fires ravaged Canada, a record-breaking heat wave swept through the southern United States, and heat waves also hit Europe and parts of Asia.
While it is always difficult to attribute a particular event to climate change, scientists regularly point out that global warming increases the frequency of extreme phenomena. More intense and more numerous, the episodes of drought increase the danger of fires, which can thus spread more quickly.
