Metro News
Apocalyptic: US wildfires death toll rises to 89, expected to rise
The raging wildfire that swept through the picturesque town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui this week has killed at least 89 people, authorities said Saturday, making it the deadliest U.S. 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 Paradise. 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.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said operations Saturday would focus on “the loss of life” as he toured the devastation on Lahaina’s beloved Front Street with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Lahaina fire was the most devastating and destructive of three large wildfires which erupted on the island Tuesday.
Wildfire damage is shown, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.
“It’s going to rise,” Green remarked Saturday on the death toll 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 rebuilding.”
FEMA said the agency has been spray-painting cars and buildings on Front Street with an “X” to indicate they had received an initial check, but that there could still be human remains inside. When crews do another pass through, if they find remains, they will add the letters “HR” next to the “X.”
As the death toll from the fires on the island rises, it’s unclear how morgues will be able to accommodate the number of victims considering there is just one hospital and three mortuaries.
Beyond the confirmed deaths in Maui, hundreds of other people remain unaccounted for.
Search and rescue teams with cadaver dogs brought in from California and Washington had so far searched only 3% of the burn area, Maui County Police Chief John Pelletier disclosed in a news briefing Saturday afternoon.
He said that FEMA had agreed to bring in another 12 cadaver dogs.
“We can only go as fast as that animal can go,” Pelletier said.
FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said that 150 FEMA personnel were on the ground in Maui, and said more search and rescue teams were coming.
Pelletier also pleaded with residents who have missing family members get a DNA test.
“We need you to do the DNA test,” Pelletier said. “We need to identify your loved ones.”
Mike Rice has been looking for friends on the island but has yet to hear from them. It’s too early to give up hope, he said, but he has not discounted possibility that they might have perished along with scores of others.
A man walks through wildfire wreckage Friday, Aug. 11, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.
“I think they could have very well made it out,” said Rice, who now lives in California. “They may or may not have made it, I’m not going to sit around with a sense of impending doom waiting to find out.”
Emergency managers in Maui were still assessing the scope of the damage Saturday in the center of Lahaina and searching for places to house people displaced from their homes.
In Saturday afternoon’s news conference, Green said that the state had secured 1,000 rooms to temporarily house displaced residents and incoming support staff. Green said officials had to ensure the hotels had working electricity before they could be utilized.
“What we’d like to do is get people in as early as now,” Green said. “But without stable power, once again, it will likely be tomorrow or Monday that we see the largest number of people get into housing.”
Green said long-term rentals would be made available “in the coming days.” Those rentals will be fully covered through a combination of state funding, FEMA funding and charitable donations, Green said.
The need for shelter was high, estimated to be as many as 4,500 people, according to the assessment posted by FEMA and the University of Hawaii’s Pacific Disaster Center.
At least 2,207 structures were estimated to have been damaged or destroyed in the wildfires, according to preliminary numbers from the Pacific Disaster Center, which also estimated that rebuilding the island would cost a projected $5.5 billion.
There also was new information Saturday about the damage to boats, with nine confirmed to have sunk in Lahaina Harbor according to sonar.
An international drug syndicate with networks in parts of Nigeria, South Africa and Thailand has been smashed by operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
Also, no fewer than five members of the cartel were arrested in a two-week intelligence led operation in Lagos, Abia and Anambra states following the seizure of their illicit drug consignments at the NAHCO import shed of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, Ikeja Lagos.
This was disclosed in a Sunday statement by NDLEA spokesman, Femi Babafemi, saying the unravelling of the drug cartel started on Sunday 20th April when their cargo of four big suitcases arrived at the NAHCO shed on an Air Peace airline flight from Johannesburg, South Africa.
He said that the first suspect, Umeh Chisom Peter was arrested on Wednesday 24th April after he showed up to pick up two of the suitcases containing Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis owned by a Thailand-based member of the syndicate, Obum Michael.
According to Babafemi, the consignment of four parcels was concealed in false bottoms of the two suitcases, while the four suitcases contain a total of 17.6 kilograms Loud and drug candies.
He said another member of the syndicate, Mrs. Chiwendu Uche Ugbe whose South Africa based husband, Aloytus Uche Ugbe sent some of the consignments, was traced to Anambra state where NDLEA officers arrested her on Saturday 27th April while attempting to collect the drug parcels sent to her by her husband.
Two other suspects: Onyejakor Francis Chimezie and Naaji Valentine Chukwukere, with links to the cartel, were also arrested in parts of Lagos on Monday 29th April.
He stated that their arrest led to another operation in Abia state where Mrs. Chinazo Osigwe was arrested when she was to pick up some of the parcels containing Loud and drug candies sent by her husband, Osigwe Chidiebere Anthony who is equally operating from South Africa.
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