President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday expressed her condolences to those affected by the wildfires in Hawaii that have so far killed 55 people, and destroyed thousands of structures and homes.
In addition to expressing her concerns, the president has instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey the government’s willingness to provide any necessary assistance to the US, Presidential Office spokesperson Lin Yu-chan (林聿禪) quoted Tsai as saying in a statement.
The president hopes for a quick recovery and a return to normal life in Hawaii, Lin said.
Photo: AFP
Tsai has also requested that the nation’s representative office in Hawaii monitor and support Taiwanese nationals caught up in the disaster that left a historic Hawaiian town in charred ruins.
Wildfires on the west coast of Hawaii’s Maui island — fueled by high winds from a nearby hurricane — broke out on Tuesday and rapidly engulfed the seaside town of Lahaina.
The flames moved so quickly that many were caught off guard, trapped in the streets or jumping into the ocean in a desperate bid to escape.
“It really looks like somebody came along and just bombed the whole town. It’s completely devastated,” said Canadian Brandon Wilson, who had traveled to Hawaii with his wife to celebrate their 25th anniversary, but was at the airport trying to get them a flight out.
“It was really hard to see,” he said, teary-eyed. “You feel so bad for people. They lost their homes, their lives, their livelihoods.”
The fires follow other extreme weather events in North America this summer, with record-breaking wildfires still burning across Canada and a major heat wave baking the US southwest.
“What we’ve seen today has been catastrophic ... likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii state history,” Hawaii Governor Josh Green said.
“In 1960 we had 61 fatalities when a large wave came through Big Island,” he said earlier in the day, referring to a tragedy that struck a year after Hawaii became the 50th US state. “This time, it’s very likely that our death totals will significantly exceed that.”
Maui County officials said just after 9pm on Thursday that fatalities stood at 55 and firefighters were still battling the blaze in the town that served as the Hawaiian kingdom’s capital in the early 19th century.
Pictures taken by an Agence France-Presse photographer who flew over Lahaina showed it had been reduced to blackened, smoking ruins.
The burned skeletons of trees still stand, rising above the ashes of the buildings to which they once offered shelter.
Green said 80 percent of the town was gone.
“Buildings that we’ve all enjoyed and celebrated together for decades, for generations, are completely destroyed,” he said.
Thousands have been left homeless and Green said a massive operation was swinging into action to find accommodation.
“We are going to need to house thousands of people,” he told a news conference. “That will mean reaching out to all of our hotels and those in the community to ask people to rent extra rooms at their property.”
US President Joe Biden on Thursday declared the fires a “major disaster” and unblocked federal aid for relief efforts, with rebuilding expected to take years.
US Coast Guard Commander Aja Kirksey told CNN that about 100 people were believed to have jumped into the water in a desperate effort to flee the flames as they tore through Lahaina.
Kirksey said helicopter pilots struggled to see because of dense smoke, but that a coast guard vessel had been able to rescue more than 50 people from the water.
“It was a really rapidly developing scene and pretty harrowing for the victims that had to jump into the water,” she said.
For resident Kekoa Lansford, the horror was far from over.
“We still get dead bodies in the water floating and on the seawall,” Lansford told CBS. “We have been pulling people out... We’re trying to save people’s lives and I feel like we are not getting the help we need.”
“With lives lost and properties decimated, we are grieving with each other during this inconsolable time,” Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said. “In the days ahead, we will be stronger as a ... community as we rebuild with resilience and aloha.”
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