At least 95 people have died in the fire that consumed the historic town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui, officials said, making it the deadliest US wildfire in more than a century and with the toll expected to rise.
“It’s an impossible day,” the state governor, Josh Green, told after viewing the devastation. Earlier, he said operations were now centred on “the loss of life”.
The fire would “certainly be the worst natural disaster that Hawaii ever faced”, he said. “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.”
The death toll would rise in the coming days. Dogs trained to detect bodies have covered only 3% of the search area, said the Maui county police chief, John Pelletier.
“We’ve got an area that we have to contain that is at least 5 square miles and it is full of our loved ones. And we’ve got 89 so far. Today we identified two,” Pelletier said, adding: “None of us really know the size of the death toll yet.”
