As of Aug. 27, Maui, Hawaii, police had reported 115 deaths as a result of recent catastrophic wildfires there.
But a recent Instagram post claims more victims have washed ashore on a neighboring island.
“They jumped into the bay — into the harbor area,” a man says in a video the post shared Aug. 24. “What they didn’t realize was that the wind was so strong it immediately began to take them out to sea, and it’s not being reported right now in the news but on the neighboring island of Lanai they found 183 bodies washed ashore.”
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It’s true that dozens of people fled the fire by retreating into the Pacific Ocean, enduring the cold water and noxious fumes from the flames. And hundreds of other people are still unaccounted for, according to The New York Times.
But authorities told PolitiFact it’s untrue that bodies washed ashore on Lanai, the island east of Maui.
Matthew West, a petty officer first class with the U.S. Coast Guard, said, “We have not received any reports of bodies washing up on Lanai.”
The Maui Police Department told PolitiFact in an email that “to date, no remains have washed ashore on Lanai.”
We rate this claim False.
