2023-08-12 11:12:08
Hawaii is still counting its dead after several blistering fires nearly leveled a town on the American island of Maui. Saturday morning, the provisional toll now reached 80 dead. Maui County Police Chief John Pelletier said Thursday that up to 1,000 people may be missing.
These recent dramatic events risk becoming the worst natural disaster in the recent history of the American archipelago.
How did the fires start?
Much of the Hawaiian archipelago was on fire red alert when multiple fires started on Tuesday, but their cause is still unknown. Authorities “have not been able to determine what started the fires,” Major General Kenneth Hara, the US military commander in Hawaii, said Wednesday night. An investigation has been opened.
The first flames around the historic town of Lahaina, which was almost completely destroyed, appeared at dawn on Tuesday. A “brush fire” was reported “at 6:37 a.m.,” according to Maui County. It was initially declared “100% under control shortly after 9 am”, but in the afternoon, a resumption of fire was announced.
Other fires were then in progress elsewhere on Maui and the flames progressed very quickly. The population of Lahaina was taken by surprise: a hundred people threw themselves into the sea to escape the blaze, according to the coast guard.
Some suspect poor crisis management
The Lahaina fire killed at least 80 people, making it one of the worst natural disasters experienced by the Hawaiian archipelago since the 1960s. And the toll is likely to rise. “Undoubtedly there will be more deaths,” Hawaii Governor Josh Green warned CNN.
Questions are beginning to emerge about the management of the authorities. The sirens supposed to sound in case of fire were not activated, confirmed to CNN a spokesperson for the agency responsible for crisis management in Hawaii.
The locals could only count on the “coconut network”, denounced William Harry to AFP. In other words, on word of mouth and rumors. “Where is the government? Where are they ? “Launched another man, visibly exasperated, who did not want to give his name.
The former capital of the kingdom of Hawaii now looks like a field of charred ruins: Lahaina is “80%” destroyed, according to the governor of the archipelago, Josh Green. Justice also opened an investigation on Friday into the management of the terrible fire. “My services are committed to understanding the decisions that were taken before and during the fires and to sharing the results of this audit with the public,” the magistrate announced in a press release.
How to explain the speed of spread of the fire?
The flames were fed by a cocktail of devastating conditions. They were fanned by a hurricane of strong winds, which exceeded 100 km / h, according to the US Weather Services (NWS).
Maui’s topography, an island that has two volcanoes and several mountains at its center, with a fairly flat coastline, also played a role. The gusts coming from the ocean transformed into “downward winds […] dry and hot”, which “have been pushed down the slopes of the island towards the city”, explains Thomas Smith, professor of environmental geography at the London School of Economics.
The region itself was ready to go up in flames, for two reasons. First because of a less rainy year than usual. The western portion of Maui, where Lahaina is located, is experiencing “severe” to “moderate” drought, according to the US Drought Monitor.
Then, because of the decline of agriculture on the island since the 1990s, according to Clay Trauernicht, a fire specialist at the University of Hawaii. The once manicured fields, which might have slowed the fire, have been replaced by “vast expanses of non-local, abandoned plants”.
#Learn #monster #fires #destroyed #entire #neighborhoods #killed #people