The death toll from the Maui wildfires in Hawaii has risen to 80 as search teams comb through the smouldering ruins of Lahaina and a new fire triggered the evacuation of another community on Friday night.
The Maui police department said the new fire was burning in Kaanapali in West Maui, to the north-east of the area that burned earlier this week. No details of the evacuation were immediately provided in the police post on social media.
The new fire and rising death toll came as Hawaiian officials sought to determine how the initial inferno spread so rapidly through Lahaina, a historic resort town, with little warning.
The office of Hawaii’s attorney general, Anne Lopez, will be conducting a comprehensive review of decision-making and standing policies leading up to, during and after the wildfires, she said.
“My department is committed to understanding the decisions that were made before and during the wildfires and to sharing with the public the results of this review,” Lopez said. “As we continue to support all aspects of the ongoing relief effort, now is the time to begin this process of understanding.”
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The fires became the deadliest natural disaster in the state’s history, surpassing that of a tsunami that killed 61 people on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1960, a year after Hawaii joined the US.
Officials have warned that search teams with cadaver dogs could still find more dead from the fire that torched 1,000 buildings and left thousands homeless, likely requiring many years and billions of dollars to rebuild.
A firefighting helicopter prepares to drop water near a fire-destroyed home in Kula on Friday. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
“Nobody has entered any of these structures that have burned down and that’s where we unfortunately anticipate that the death toll will rise significantly,” US senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii told MSNBC on Friday.
He later told CNN that Lahaina resembled a bombed-out war zone where the heat had melted engine blocks.
The Lahaina fire that spread from the brush to town was still burning but 85% contained, Maui county said in a statement. Two other wildfires on the island were 80% and 50% contained.
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Three days after the disaster, it remained unclear whether some residents had received any warning before the fire engulfed their homes.
The island includes emergency sirens intended to warn of natural disasters and other threats, but they did not appear to have sounded during the fire.
“I authorised a comprehensive review this morning to make sure that we know exactly what happened and when,” Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, told CNN, referring to the warning sirens.
Two people look through the ashes of their family’s home in Lahaina after the wildfire. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
Officials have not offered a detailed…
2023-08-12 03:02:29
Link from www.theguardian.com
