by Ruth Styles at Daily Mail
- Locals have been forced to carry out their own search and recovery efforts in the aftermath of the deadly Lahaina wildfires amid the slow response from officials, DailyMail.com has learned
- Maui resident and volunteer Allisen Medina, 24, has also claimed authorities are underplaying the death toll: ‘I know there are at least 480 dead here in Maui and I don’t understand why they’re not saying that’
- She said the slow recovery process has led to family members being left to find the charred corpses of their loved ones themselves, including a friend of hers who lost four family members
Maui authorities are dramatically underplaying the number of people known to have died in the inferno that ripped through Lahaina last week – with locals telling DailyMail.com that the actual death toll is at least 480 and that morgues had run out of body bags.
The figure is quadruple that of the official number of 111 – and some of the relatives of the victims have been left to uncover the remains of their loved ones themselves due to the glacial progress of the search and recovery operation.
On Tuesday, Maui mayor Richard Bissen said just 25 per cent of the stricken town had been searched, although he expected that figure to increase to 85 per cent by Saturday.
But DailyMail.com photos taken on Wednesday showed hundreds of cars and vehicles still unsearched – with just a handful marked with an orange X to show they’d been looked at…