USA: People Of Lahaina In Hawaiian Island Allowed To Their Homes To See If They Still Stand
People who live in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui have been allowed back to their homes – to see if they’re still standing.
At least 80 people have died, but hundreds are missing and searches continue – in what has become Hawaii’s deadliest natural disaster since 1960, when a tsunami killed 61.
Wildfires have turned many properties into burnt out shells after flames virtually wiped out the historic town.
They were fuelled by a dry summer and strong winds-from-a-passing-hurricane, and took Maui residents by surprise.
But there are questions about why Hawaii’s emergency sirens failed to sound a warning.
Emergency responder Dr Reza Danesh has been telling NBC about the scale of the disaster:
“It was devastating. It felt like a war zone. And it was still fresh. I could see trees burning, I could feel the smoke. I could feel the heat. And it was basically like the another pandemic to explain it. It was a ghost town, very apocalyptic”.
