The number of victims in Hawaii rises to 67 – the clean-up work continues

This was announced by the Maui district late Friday evening (local time). Meanwhile, clearing and clean-up work continues. Several fires broke out on Maui and the neighboring island of Hawaii on Tuesday, which were quickly increased by strong winds with speeds of up to 130 kilometers per hour.

“There is no doubt that the number of deaths will continue to rise,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said on Friday. So far, victims have been identified who had fled their homes at the time of their death. Several US media reported that rescue teams are only gradually able to penetrate the interior of destroyed buildings. However, the winds from earlier in the week died down.

No sirens

Green said, according to CNN, that he had ordered an investigation into the authorities’ initially slow response. Among other things, there had been criticism because no warning sirens had been used on Maui at the beginning.

The small town of Lahaina in the west of the island was hit particularly hard. According to Green, the first residents were able to return to their homes on Friday. But he warned about the condition of the houses. “You will see a level of destruction that you have never seen in your life,” the governor told KHON2 television.

In Lahaina there had been criticism that an evacuation might have been ordered too late – according to the “New York Times” on Facebook there were reports from the authorities on Thursday that the fires were under control. Fire chief Bradford Ventura later said at a press conference that the fires had spread surprisingly quickly and that it had previously been “almost impossible” to order evacuations quickly enough. According to CNN, about 1,700 buildings on Maui have been destroyed.

The power supply was restored for many residents of the island on Friday. According to the website poweroutage.us, around 11,000 households were still without electricity in the morning, but by the evening this number had fallen to around 4,500 households.

Maui has an area of ​​around 1,900 square kilometers, about three quarters the size of Vorarlberg. Almost 13,000 people live in the city of Lahaina in the west of the island, which was particularly badly affected by the fires. According to the city’s retail association, it is visited by around two million tourists every year.