Nature Turns Maui into Hiroshima, without a Bomb

The official death toll is 111, but everyone knows that number is not even close to the reality of the situation.

Lahaina, on the island of Maui, was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Hawaii. It is a paradise that has turned into a hell, thanks to a disaster that calls to mind the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only this time without nuclear weapons. Our ABC correspondent there encountered incalculable human tragedy. The official death toll is 111, but everyone knows that number is not even close to the reality in a place that became a crematorium when 2,000 buildings went up in flames in an instant.* Area residents are vacillating between accepting that nothing could have been done to avoid what happened and rage as they start to learn about mistakes that were made by service providers who cut the power unnecessarily**, for example, and about the delays in getting assistance from the mainland and about the failure of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which did not activate sirens because they were set up for tsunamis and would have pushed people toward the flames.

*Translator’s Note: As of Aug. 21, 2023, at least 114 people were known dead in the Maui fires; at least 850 people were still unaccounted for.

**Editor’s Note: In fact, the problem was the reverse. The electrical utility did not cut off power, which might have helped stop the high winds from spreading so quickly.