Some missing Portuguese descendants in Hawaii have already been found

Some descendants of the Portuguese missing in the fires on the island of Maui have already been located, and Portugal continues to monitor the situation in Hawaii, the government said this Sunday.

A statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (ME) said that “it is known that some descendants of the Portuguese have already been located, but it is possible that there are still missing people.”

ME, the note says, continues to “monitor the situation in Hawaii through the Portuguese Consulate General in San Francisco.”

On Saturday, Republican President Marcelo Rebelo de Souza said there were “no records of Portuguese citizens” among those killed in the Hawaii wildfires in the United States.

Earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the existence of descendants of the Portuguese who disappeared after the forest fires in Hawaii.

“While the government [norte-americano] has not yet published the lists of the dead, but family members of Portuguese origin are known to have gone missing,” the Foreign Ministry said in response to Luza on Saturday.

Also on Saturday, the Portuguese MNE also said it had not registered any requests for support from citizens of Portuguese citizenship, dual citizenship, or descendants of Portuguese people in Hawaii.

“Hawaii has about 30 citizens registered with the Consulate General of San Francisco. The Portuguese community with dual citizenship is estimated at about 200 people,” the MNE said in a statement.

The MNE also explained that the community of Portuguese heritage, “numbering about 100,000 people”, was formed by the descendants of the migratory wave of the late 19th century, who do not have Portuguese citizenship.

However, he acknowledged that in the now-released list of people missing in the Hawaii fires, “there are Portuguese names of families of Portuguese origin who are not citizens of the country.”

The death toll from the wildfires that engulfed the US island of Maui in the Hawaiian archipelago has risen to 93, according to figures released by local authorities.

Official structures predict that as the search continues in the devastated areas, new victims will be found.

Two of three Maui fires are still burning, according to the county’s latest report, which has so far been able to identify only two of 93 confirmed victims.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said the fires are already “the biggest natural disaster Hawaii has ever experienced,” according to CNN, surpassing 61 confirmed deaths since the 1960 tsunami.

Before Hawaii became a state in 1959, the tsunami in 1946 killed 158 people.

The governor also estimated the material loss at about US$6 billion (about 5.5 billion euros).

These fires are the deadliest in the US in more than 100 years, surpassing Camp Fire in California, which killed 85 people and reduced the city of Paradise to ashes.