Maui wildfire crews expect to discover ’10 to 20′ more bodies a day

Search crews will likely find “10 to 20” new bodies every day as they comb through the charred remains of West Maui, potentially tripling the current death toll, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green has grimly warned.

With about 1,300 people still reported missing, Green said he expects the search through the smoldering remains of Lahaina to last another 10 days, which given his estimate, would mean the total death count could climb as high as 300, or about triple the current 96.

“There are more fatalities that will come,’ Green told CBS on Sunday. ‘The fire was so hot that what we find is the tragic finding that you would imagine. … It’s hard to recognize anybody. But they’re able to determine if someone did perish. 

“They will find 10 to 20 people per day probably until they finish. And it’s probably going to take 10 days. It’s impossible to guess, really,” he said.

So far, officials estimate that only 3% of the affected area has been searched so far, with police and fire officials previously concluding that a complete search could take multiple weeks or even a month to complete.

Green, who has toured Lahaina twice and described the devastation akin to that of a “bomb” going off, said the city has been effectively burned to ashes.

“The buildings are almost nonexistent,” Green said. “It was so hot that even metal contorted so that you can’t believe what the building was.

“But that’s what you see, and obviously there will not be any survivors in the area left,” he added. “We are prepared for many tragic stories.”

Dozens of rescuers accompanied by cadaver dogs have been going door to door in the town, marking an “X” for areas that should be searched thoroughly and “HR” in locations where human remains have been spotted.

Collecting and identifying the bodies has proven to be its own grizzly task. with Maui Police Chief John Pelletier noting the fire had been so devastating, each recovered body will have to be identified through DNA testing.

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Pelletier emphasized the horrors of the search effort, describing how found human remains as so fragile that they break in the hands of emergency worker crews and end up being scattered across the ground.

With officials expecting to find more bodies, a mobile refrigerated morgue has been rushed to the site, fitted with racks to store the bodies of the deceased, according to the Daily Mail.