Death toll from devastating Maui fire reaches 101, Hawaii governor says
Lahaina (AP): A mobile morgue unit has arrived to help Hawaii officials working painstakingly to identify the remains of people killed in wildfires that ravaged Maui, as the death rose above 100 and teams intensified the search for more dead in neighborhoods reduced to ash.
Gov. Josh Green announced the confirmed death toll had risen from 99 to 101 in an afternoon video address, saying, "We are heartsick that we've had such loss."
The US Department of Health and Human Services deployed a team of coroners, pathologists and technicians along with exam tables, X-ray units and other equipment to identify victims and process remains, said Jonathan Greene, the agency's deputy assistant secretary for response.
"It's going to be a very, very difficult mission," Greene said. "And patience will be incredibly important because of the number of victims."
A week after a blaze tore through historic Lahaina, many survivors started moving into hundreds of hotel rooms set aside for displaced locals, while donations of food, ice, water and other essentials poured in.
Crews using cadaver dogs have scoured about 32 per cent of the area, the County of Maui said in a statement Tuesday. The governor asked for patience as authorities became overwhelmed with requests to visit the burn area.
Just three bodies have been identified, and officials expected to start releasing names Tuesday, according to Maui Police Chief John Pelletier, who renewed an appeal for families with missing relatives to provide DNA samples.
So far 41 samples have been submitted, the county statement said, and 13 DNA profiles have been obtained from remains.
The governor warned that scores more bodies could be found. The wildfires, some of which have not yet been fully contained, are already the deadliest in the US in more than a century. Their cause was under investigation.
When asked by Hawaii News Now if children are among the missing, Green said Tuesday: "Tragically, yes. ... When the bodies are smaller, we know it's a child."
He described some of the sites being searched as "too much to share or see from just a human perspective."
Another complicating factor, Green said, is that storms with rain and high winds were forecast for the weekend. Officials are mulling whether to "preemptively power down or not for a short period of time, because right now all of the infrastructure is weaker."
A week after the fires started, some residents remained with intermittent power, unreliable cellphone service and uncertainty over where to get assistance. Some people walked periodically to a seawall, where phone connections were strongest, to make calls.
Flying low off the coast, a single-prop airplane used a loudspeaker to blare information about where to get water and supplies.
Victoria Martocci, who lost her scuba business and a boat, planned to travel to her storage unit in Kahalui from her Kahana home Wednesday to stash documents and keepsakes given to her by a friend whose house burned. "These are things she grabbed, the only things she could grab, and I want to keep them safe for her," Martocci said.
The local power utility has already faced criticism for not shutting off power as strong winds buffeted a parched area under high risk for fire. It's not clear whether the utility's equipment played any role in igniting the flames.
Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc. President and CEO Shelee Kimura said many factors go into a decision to cut power, including the impact on people who rely on specialized medical equipment and concerns that a shutoff in the fire area would have knocked out water pumps.
Green has said the flames raced as fast as a mile (1.6 kilometers) every minute in one area, fueled by dry grass and propelled by strong winds from a passing hurricane.
The blaze that swept into centuries-old Lahaina last week destroyed nearly every building in the town of 13,000. That fire has been 85 per cent contained, according to the county. Another blaze known as the Upcountry fire was 60 per cent contained.
The Lahaina fire caused about USD 3.2 billion in insured property losses, according to calculations by Karen Clark & Company, a prominent disaster and risk modeling company. That doesn't count damage to uninsured property. The firm said more than 2,200 buildings were damaged or destroyed by flames, with about 3,000 damaged by fire or smoke or both.
Even where the flames have retreated, authorities have warned that toxic byproducts may remain, including in drinking water, after the flames spewed poisonous fumes. That has left many unable to return home.
The Red Cross said 575 evacuees were spread across five shelters as of Monday. Green said thousands of people will need housing for at least 36 weeks. He said Tuesday that some 450 hotel rooms and 1,000 Airbnb rentals were being made available.
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he and first lady Jill Biden would visit Hawaii "as soon as we can" but he doesn't want his presence to interrupt recovery and cleanup efforts. During a stop in Milwaukee to highlight his economic agenda, Biden pledged that "every asset they need will be there for them."
More than 3,000 people have registered for federal assistance, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and that number was expected to grow.
FEMA was providing USD 700 to displaced residents to cover the cost of food, water, first aid and medical supplies, in addition to qualifying coverage for the loss of homes and personal property.
The Biden administration was seeking USD 12 billion more for the government's disaster relief fund as part of its supplemental funding request to Congress.
Green said "leaders all across the board" have helped by donating over 1 million pounds (450,000 kilograms) of food as well as ice, water, diapers and baby formula. US Marines, the Hawaii National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard have all joined the aid and recovery efforts.
Lahaina resident Kekoa Lansford helped rescue people as the flames swept through town. Now he is collecting stories from survivors, hoping to create a timeline of what happened. He has 170 emails so far.
The scene was haunting. "Horrible, horrible," Lansford said Tuesday. "You ever seen hell in the movies? That is what it looked like. Fire everywhere. Dead people."
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Not surprised EC gave itself clean chit: Cong slams poll panel on Haryana complaints
Warns ECI of legal action over 'condescending' tone
New Delhi, Nov 1: The Congress on Friday hit out at the Election Commission after it rejected allegations of "irregularities" in Haryana assembly polls, saying if the poll panel's goal is to "strip itself of the last vestiges of neutrality", then it is doing a "remarkable job" at creating that impression.
The opposition party claimed that the EC's reply was written in a tone that is condescending and warned that if the poll panel persists with such language then it would have no choice but to seek legal recourse for getting such remarks expunged.
The Congress's response came days after the EC rejected allegations levelled by it over "irregularities" in assembly polls, saying the party was raising "the smoke of a generic doubt" about the credibility of an entire electoral outcome as done in the past.
The Congress said it is not surprised that the ECI has examined its complaints and "given itself a clean chit". The answer given to the question of the machines' fluctuating batteries seeks to confuse rather than clarify, it said.
"At any rate, the ECI reply is nothing more than a standard and generic set of bullets on how the machines function rather than a specific clarification on specific complaints. In short, while our complaints were specific the ECI response is generic and focused on diminishing the complaints and the petitioners," the Congress said.
In its letter to the EC signed by nine senior Congress leaders, including general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh, the party said, "We have carefully studied your response to our complaints. Not surprisingly, the ECI has given a clean chit to itself. We would normally have let it be at that. However, the tone and tenor of the ECI's response, the language used, and the allegations made against the INC compel us to submit the counter-response."
The Congress letter said that if the Commission grants a recognised national party a hearing or examines issues raised by them in good faith it is not an 'exception' or 'indulgence' but it is the performance of a duty required to be done.
"If the Commission is refusing to grant us a hearing or refusing to engage on certain complaints (which it has done in the past) then the law allows recourse to the higher courts' extraordinary jurisdiction to compel the ECI to discharge this function (as happened in 2019)," the letter said.
The Congress leaders, who had petitioned the EC alleging irregularities in the polls, said every reply from the EC now "seems to be laced with ad-hominem attacks" on either individual leaders or the party itself.
"The ECI's reply are written in a tone that is condescending. If the current ECI's goal is to strip itself of the last vestiges of neutrality, then it is doing a remarkable job at creating that impression," the party said in its letter to the EC.
"Judges who write decisions do not attack or demonise the party raising the issues. However, if the ECI persists then we shall have no choice but to seek legal recourse to expunge such remarks," said the letter signed by Ramesh, K C Venugopal, Ashok Gehlot, Bhupinder Hooda, Ajay Maken, Abhishek Singhvi, Uday Bhan, Partap Bajwa and Pawan Khera.
They also said that the "pattern" sought to be identified by the ECI in its reply is "disingenuous" as sometimes acting on complaints immediately is the key.
"If they are not redressed on the ground then they become redundant. And then the only remedy available is an Election Petition which is a lengthy process taking years to resolve. Thus, we approach the ECI with whatever information we have, and the ECI with the vast resources at its command, examines and reviews this information to see if the same is correct. Many times, the ECI has found our information to be correct. Other times, not so. But we do not name and shame the ECI for those moments after the Election is over," they said.
The Congress said if they were "bad faith actors", then they would never engage with the ECI to begin with. "We would focus on naming and shaming the Commission with examples from the ECI's own recent history which do not shroud it with glory," it said, adding that they would have never engaged in that case.
The Congress said it has sent over a hundred complaints against the prime minister and home minister, but "the ECI has taken action in precisely zero complaints, while calling our party president and former party president to account for their actions/speeches".
"We would point out how the ECI never published a dissent note, actively suppressing it instead, by a former Commissioner in this regard. We would point out that the ECI has almost always fought any move for transparency and increase in VVPAT verification numbers, with the same having to be ordered by the Supreme Court. We challenge the ECI to fact check the above since it finds the INC's misgivings to be based on phantoms," the Congress said.
In a strongly-worded letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, the poll panel had said such "frivolous and unfounded" doubts have the potential of creating "turbulence" when crucial steps like polling and counting are in live play, a time when both public and political parties' anxiousness is peaking.
The BJP retained power in Haryana winning 48 of the 90 seats in the October 5 assembly polls.
