Hawaii Governor Josh Green on Sunday called a part of the island of Maui that was devastated by wildfires a “war zone,” as the death toll reached 96 and was expected to keep climbing.
“The losses approach $6 billion in estimate,” Green said Saturday, adding it would take “an incredible amount of time” to recover.
Days after the inferno, crews of firefighters were still battling flare-ups, and cadaver dogs were sifting through the town’s charred ruins in search of victims as survivors and officials grappled with the scale of the disaster.
“Right now, we are still in the throes of the acute phase of this recovery, meaning that we’re still recovering the tragic loss of life,” Green told MSNBC on Sunday. “It’s a war zone, but the help is incredible.”
Some people were forced to wade into the Pacific Ocean to escape.
The death toll made the blaze Hawaii’s worst natural disaster, surpassing a tsunami that killed 61 people in 1960, a year after Hawaii became a U.S. state.
