Hawaii updates death toll in Maui wildfire disaster

In an interview with CNN on September 15, Mr. Green also said that the number of people missing in the Maui wildfire was 31, according to Reuters. Last week, Mr. Green said that the number of people dead in the Maui wildfire was 115 and 66 people were missing.

“The death toll is down because we have Department of Defense anthropologists who can do more advanced genetic research,” said Mr. Green.

Thống đốc Hawaii nêu số người chết mới trong thảm họa cháy rừng ở Maui - Ảnh 1. — An area in the town of Lahaina burned during a wildfire on the island of Maui on August 8.

The death toll makes the Maui wildfire the worst natural disaster in Hawaii's history, surpassing a tsunami that killed 61 people in 1960, a year after Hawaii became a US state, according to Reuters.

The latest toll also surpasses the 85 people killed in the 2018 wildfire in the town of Paradise, California, and is the highest death toll from a wildfire since 1918, when the Cloquet Fire in Minnesota and Wisconsin killed 453 people.

Hawaii wildfire victims fear land grabs after disaster

The Maui wildfire disaster began just after midnight on August 8, when a fire was reported in the town of Kula, about 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the island's resort town of Lahaina.

In addition to the casualties, the Maui wildfire also damaged or destroyed more than 2,200 structures and burned 850 hectares, with the cost of rebuilding the town of Lahaina estimated at about $5.5 billion, according to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

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