HONOLULU (KHON2) — The Maui police announced on Friday that the death toll from the Lahaina fire has been revised to 97 — a drop from the 115 initially confirmed.
In a press conference on Friday, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said the revision comes after forensic tests recognized duplicates in a catalog of remains. Officials said this can occur when multiple agencies are taking part in recovery efforts.
In addition to the change in fatalities, MPD said the number of unaccounted for dropped to 31. These missing individuals all have verified missing persons cases under investigation by police.
“All these numbers are fluid but we’re giving the very best numbers at the time we have.”
Jeremy Stuelpnagel, MD/Medical Examiner
Out of the 97 lives that were claimed, 74 of those individuals have been identified. MPD added that one of the victims was a person who died later after being transferred to Oahu.
“99% we’ve been able to mitigate and find them as accounted and so when we’re talking about horrible misinformation of hundreds of bodies that did not happen — washing on shore, different things like that — didn’t happen,” said Pelletier.
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Click here to see the list of identified victims and the memories they left behind with family members who shared their stories with KHON2 News.
