Maui was a paradise in the Hawaiian archipelago. Today that island, which connected with nature, is hell: death, desolation, destruction. The number of deaths rose last night to at least 53 due to the terrible fire that by surprise, according to the authorities, became a devastating element driven by the strong winds of a hurricane. It is not ruled out that there are more deaths since there were numerous notices of people looking for relatives.
Thousands of people, who explained their escapes with what they were wearing, have been left homeless, and more than 11,000 tourists, the great economic source, have been evacuated in the last hours, while the fire devastated everything and burned sacred land.
Many visitors and neighbors sought to escape at any cost. The human and material damages were concentrated above all in the city of Lahaina, a historic tourist city on Maui, where the speed of the fire caused the tragic death toll.
The rescue services continued this Thursday the tasks against the clock to search for missing people. The flames and flashes were so powerful that not a few jumped into the Pacific Ocean to try to escape, and then had to be rescued.
US President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for a major disaster. "We are going to provide all the help that people desperately need," he said. "Our prayers are with the people of Hawaii, but they are not just prayers, we are going to make all available resources available to them," he insisted.
The aerial images showed a desolate landscape, entire neighborhoods turned into ruins, inert, reduced to ashes, what until recently was a vibrant and colorful place.
Virtually nothing remained of that town's Front Street, the great boulevard where tourists enjoyed restaurants and native entertainment. The boats in the port were destroyed, in many cases they were blown up when the fuel tanks exploded.
At least 1,700 buildings have been destroyed and 80% of Lahaina's 12,000 residents have been severely affected, according to Gov. Josh Green. “Lahaina, with rare exceptions, has been engulfed in flames,” he lamented. And the fire, which was still raging, had either collapsed or endangered buildings significant to Hawaiian history.
Lahaina, which was the capital of the kingdom of Hawaii, was preserved as a historical place, it has lost several of those sites that gave it personality. The fire affected a natural monument, a banyan tree, imported from India and planted in 1873 in one of the central points, in front of the court of justice. It covers almost a block and is 18 meters high. There was no visitor who did not take a photo between its trunk and branches.
