The Maui wildfires death toll stood at 99 late Monday night, a figure authorities warned could double in coming days as search crews comb neighborhoods where devastating flames moved as fast as a mile a minute across the Hawaii island.
AP reports Gov. Josh Green said the search will take time and and asked for space to do it properly.
“For those people who have walked into Lahaina because they really wanted to see, know that they’re very likely walking on iwi,” he said at a news conference on Maui, using the Hawaiian word for “bones.”
FBI Evidence Response Team (ERT) agents watch as additional refrigerated storage containers arrive adjacent to the Maui Police Forensic Facility where human remains are stored in the aftermath Maui wildfires in Wailuku, Hawaii on August 14, 2023. (PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)
A road is closed preventing access to a burned neighbourhood in the aftermath of a wildfire, in Lahaina, western Maui, Hawaii on August 14, 2023. The death toll in Hawaii’s wildfires rose to 99 and could double over the next 10 days. (YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)
In an interview with CBS aired earlier Monday, Green estimated searchers will find the remains of 10 to 20 people per day until they finish their work. “And it’s probably going to take 10 days. It’s impossible to guess, really,” he said.
“The updated number of 99 confirmed people have passed,” he later told CNN.
He added: “It will go up very significantly… Over the course of the next 10 days, this number could double.”
So far just three percent of areas affected by wildfires in Hawaii’s have been searched with cadaver dogs, as Breitbart News reported.
As cellphone service has slowly been restored, the number of people missing dropped to about 1,300 from over 2,000, Green said.
“Gut-Wrenching”: Burned-Out Cars Line Streets as Residents Survey the Ruins of Lahaina, Hawaii
The blaze that swept into centuries-old township of Lahaina last week destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000. That fire has been 85 percent contained, according to the county.
Another blaze known as the Upcountry fire has been 60 percent contained, officials said.
“There’s very little left there,” Green said of Lahaina in a video update Sunday, adding that “an estimated value of $5.6 billion has gone away.”