Residents of the Hawaiian island of Maui are still cleaning up after August’s fires, which destroyed the historic town of Lahaina and left more than 100 people dead.
KPOA Radio manager Shane Kahalehau says the town still looks bleak, and rebuilding is estimated to cost up to NZ$10 billion.
More than 2000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, forcing many Lahaina locals to move away or live in hotels or makeshift accommodation.
Specialist skills are needed to attempt to rescue the town’s historic heritage as the former seat of the great King Kamehameha.
“We had some Hawaiian artefact and cultural specialists who have trained themselves to go in – because there’s a lot of Hawaiian historic artefacts that were in the fire that needed to be retrieved, that not just anyone could go out there and retrieve it. You needed to know what you were looking for and so forth,” Kahalehau says.
- Waatea News