2023-08-11 10:31:53
It is now Hawaii’s “biggest natural disaster in history”. At least 55 people died in devastating fires that almost razed a tourist town in this American island state. The toll of the disaster is expected to increase further.
Local authorities in Maui County reported 55 deaths as of Thursday evening. They added that firefighters were still battling the blaze in the ravaged resort town of Lahaina on Maui.
Thousands of residents and tourists have already been evacuated from the disaster areas in the archipelago. Governor Josh Green said Lahaina, the former capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 19th century, is “80%” destroyed.
“This is the biggest natural disaster in the history of the State of Hawaii,” insisted the governor Thursday to the press, estimating that the toll should exceed that of the disaster that occurred a year before Hawaii became the 50th American state. “In 1960 we had 61 dead when a huge wave swept over Big Island,” he explained.
>> Read also: Devastating fires kill at least 53 in Hawaii, where the national guard has been sent
“A War Zone”
These devastating fires come in the middle of a summer marked by a series of extreme weather events, all over the planet.
“It looks like a war zone out there,” said Brandon Wilson, a tourist who came to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary with his wife, as he waited in line at the airport to leave Maui. “It’s really as if someone had come and bombarded the whole city, everything is completely devastated, completely charred,” he says in tears.
>> Review the subject of Thursday’s 7:30 p.m.:
Ravaged by flames, Hawaii evacuates tourists and residents / 7:30 p.m. / 1 min. / yesterday at 7:30 p.m.
Surprise effect
Fueled by strong winds, fed by the force of Hurricane Dora which is currently passing through the Pacific Ocean, the fires have spread so quickly that the population has been taken aback. A hundred residents threw themselves into the sea to escape the flames, according to the coast guard.
President Joe Biden has signed a natural disaster declaration, which will unlock significant federal aid to fund relief, emergency shelter and reconstruction efforts.
But on the spot, the locals count the inanimate 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.
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