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Hawaii governor Josh Green speaks at a news conference Haven Daley

Hundreds of people remain missing after Maui wildfires

Governor Josh Green had earlier said he expected the number would fall below 100.

THE NUMBER OF people on the official list of those missing from the Maui wildfire which began a month ago has been put at 385, nearly unchanged from a week earlier.

In a news release, Maui Police Department and the FBI said 245 people on the list of 388 published last week had been located and removed from the list, but a nearly equal number of new names had been added.

The update was a departure from what had been expected. A day earlier governor Josh Green had said he expected the number to fall below 100.

“We think the number has dropped down into the double digits, so thank God,” he said in a video posted to his account on X, formerly known as Twitter.

After Maui police released the updated list, Green said the numbers of fatalities and missing are often in flux in mass casualty events until investigations are completed.

“Exact numbers are going to take time, perhaps a long time, to become finalised,” he said in a statement provided through a spokesperson.

He added that there are fewer than 50 “active missing person cases”. He did not elaborate but indicated those are the people for whom more information was provided than the minimum to be on the missing list compiled by the FBI.

Authorities have said at least 115 people died in the fire, which tore through Lahaina in a matter of hours on 8 August 8 – the deadliest wildfire in the US in more than a century.

embeddedabd5530cb4ba48a284ae72367576ab8d Charred cars and buildings in the aftermath of the wildfire in Lahaina Jae C Hong / AP Jae C Hong / AP / AP

So far, the names of 50 people have been publicly released and five others have been identified but their names withheld because next of kin have not been reached. The rest have yet to be identified.

Initially more than 1,000 people were believed unaccounted for based on family, friends or acquaintances reporting them as missing. Officials narrowed that list down to 388 who were credibly considered missing and released the list of names to the public last week.

The list is compiled by the FBI and includes only “credible” names, defined as a first and last name provided by a person with a verified contact number.

New names on Friday’s updated list were added from the Red Cross, shelters and interested parties who contacted the FBI, Maui Police Chief John Pelletier said.

He urged family members of the missing to submit their genetic data to help identify their relatives.

“If you have a loved one that you know is missing and you are a family member, it’s imperative that you get a DNA sample,” he said in a video posted to Instagram.

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:32 PM

    That’s the problem with todays media reporting of live events, they are all so busy trying to get one up on the other channels that they don’t think for a minute about what they are saying. Imagine hiding out from some langer trying to kill you only for some idiot reporter to come on air and say “oh by the way there’s 4 hostages hiding out in the cold room”!

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    Mute Lad
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:58 PM

    If you can get your hands on “the human face of big data”, there’s an interesting piece on how terrorists use data and how in more prolific hostage taking countries it’s now quite common for live selected killings to take place using human search engines and media outlets for info. Or even waiting to carry out an attack to see who is in their area. Next gen terrorism. Off point but interesting.

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    Mute Avina Laaf
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    Apr 4th 2015, 12:28 AM

    Its not just a modern thing – during a ground stand-off following an aircraft hijacking (in the 1970′s I think) special forces had approached the plane via a blind spot to launch a surprise raid on the hijackers. Unfortunately events were being broadcast on live radio and the hijackers were listening in and knew exactly what was about to happen, with disastrous results.

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    Mute David Fitzpatrick
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    Apr 4th 2015, 1:35 AM

    Amen.
    What Globalist Murdoch said about the Sydney Siege comes to mind.
    Bloodthirsty vampire.
    http://www.thejournal.ie/murdoch-tweet-sydney-1836603-Dec2014/

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    Mute Paul Furey
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:33 PM

    Good move. Hopefully the media will cop on a bit more. If some aren’t making it up they are getting it all wrong.

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:37 PM

    Fox News springs to mind!

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    Mute jenni
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:32 PM

    About time the tv media were taken to task, imagine if that lunatic had been watching the live stream and did go down to the chiller they were hiding in…unthinkable acts would have ensued.
    In this day and age you would think tv news channels would have more cop on…but I suppose being more and more sensationalist is worth more than a life in this day and age. How many more lives would have been saved that day if that sick man was not put under the spotlight?
    Its sad really that there is an appetite for this sensationalism.

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    Mute Brian Ward
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 7:37 PM

    Apparently the gunman was watching but must have missed that report. The cop is to blame here as well as he shouldn’t have told the media anything in the first place. With today’s communications it would be easy for any gunman to have someone else watching TV, twitter etc and keeping them informed of what was going on. Best keep the media away from they area and in the dark until it’s all over.

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    Mute Al Ca
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:05 PM

    I wonder if that journalist would have been so eager to broadcast that information if one of his own relatives was hiding in that freezer?…..I think not…….which just goes to show how little empathy some journalists have with other people in deadly situations.

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    Mute brian magee
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 11:01 PM

    I wonder what nationality and religion the editor / producer : journalist are?

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    Mute Alan
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 8:40 PM

    It’s like that film Night Crawler. Ratings are worth more to these stations than human lives. Check it out. Jake Gyllenhaal is great in it.

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    Mute Rowan Murphy
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:15 PM

    I was thinking more about the reporter from Die Hard and Die Hard 2.

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    Mute miserable now.
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:20 PM

    Yes. Just what I was thinking. Great movie.
    Some of these”repoters” are sociopaths.

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    Mute Patrick J O'CONNOR
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 9:21 PM

    Look at the way they vilify Israel for its conduct in the war against Hamas terror,though experts in this field attest that Israel took the most extraordinary efforts to keep civilian casualties at a minimum while Hamas used its own people as shields in some cases. But vilifying Israel feeds the Jew-hatred and sells so ‘to hell with the facts go for what sells’.
    See excerpt from Colonel Kemp’s report
    –Three days ago I spoke to an Israeli pilot that told me that the same morning he had aborted an enemy target a total of 17 times because there were civilians in the target zone, and eventually he abandoned the operation. I asked him, was that not frustrating? His answer was simply no. And that to me, is one of the best things about the IAF – that the last very thing they want to do is bomb a target and have that on their conscience for the rest of their lives. And it was the same thing with infantry soldiers. I spoke to soldiers who have been fighting in Gaza, and several of them said to me: ‘We know what the rules of engagement are but even without them, it is always on our minds that we cannot kill civilians.’ See for them, this has nothing to do with orders, it’s just always there at the forefront. We’re talking about [reservists who are] simply artists, metal-workers, musicians, they are not killers. They have absolutely no desire to kill civilians. In fact, in terms of civilian casualties, the attitude of IDF solders is the exact mirror image of the way they’re portrayed to the world.
    http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/30/col-richard-kemp-israeli-pilot-aborted-gaza-strike-17-times-to-protect-civilians-jewish-people-should-be-proud-of-the-state-of-israel-interview/
    Happy Easter All!

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    Mute Elias Khoury
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    Apr 3rd 2015, 10:57 PM

    Truly and accurately stated. You’ll get red thumbs galore, no doubt, Patrick, but that just goes to show that many people don’t like the truth messing up their paradigm.

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    Mute Patrick J O'CONNOR
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    Apr 4th 2015, 2:11 AM

    @Elias Khoury! Thanks for Elias’ sentiment. Your prediction was so but not so bad and some of them even red-thumbed Elias to spite me.Laughable isn’t it!
    I worry not but to speak the truth as I see it. People have a very healthy scepticism about the newsmedia here and it’s just a matter of time before they cotton-on to the con-job the Hamas/PLO and other Jihadders have pulled on them via the self-seeking media.
    Additionally, Jew-hatred is on the wane however imperceptible it seems.
    Happy Easter…

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