CNN
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Officials in Maui County, Hawaii, have released a list of nearly 400 people who remain unaccounted for following devastating wildfires on the island this month.
The “validated list” contains 388 names and was put together by the FBI, a Thursday news release from the county said.
It’s a drop from the more than 1,000 people previously believed unaccounted for.
“The number of people who are unaccounted for, which has been ranging between, like, 800 and 1,200, that number is going to decrease very significantly today as the FBI works with all other agencies to unduplicate people that have been reported missing,” Hawaii Gov. Josh Green said in a social media post earlier Thursday.
At least 115 people are confirmed dead, officials have said.
The release of the list was “not an easy thing to do,” Police Chief John Pelletier said.
“We’re releasing this list of names today because we know that it will help with the investigation,” Pelletier said in the release. “We also know that once those names come out, it can and will cause pain for folks whose loved ones are listed. This is not an easy thing to do, but we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make this investigation as complete and thorough as possible.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
