News Puerto Rico: 64. Actual Deaths May Be 1,052.

Houses were destroyed. The energy was knocked out. And throughout Puerto Rico, bodies began to appear in the morgue. Hurricane Maria pummeled Puerto Rico with great fury, but the government has not reported an official death toll much less than the devastation suggests. A review by The New York Times of the daily mortality data from the Puerto Rico office statistics indicates a significantly higher death toll after the hurricane that the government has not recognized. The Times analysis found that in the 42 days after Hurricane Mary made landfall on September 20 as a Category 4 storm, 1,052 more people than usual died across the island. The analysis compared the number of deaths per day in 2017 with the average number of deaths by the same dates of 2015 and 2016. Officially, only 64 people died as a result of the storm that hit the island with winds of almost 150 miles per hour, cutting the diet of 3.4 million Puerto Ricans. The last two deaths were added to the death toll on December 9.

"Before the hurricane, which had an average of 82 deaths per day, that changes from September 20 to 30. Now they have an average of 118 deaths per day," Wanda Llovet, the director of the Puerto Rico Demographic Registry, said in a statement. mid-November interview. Since then, he said on Thursday, both figures have increased by one. Data for October is not yet complete, and the number of deaths recorded in that month is expected to rise. record keeping has been delayed because Puerto Rico's power grid is operating at less than 70 percent of its capacity and slots on the island still have no power. The deadliest day was September 25, the day that the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo A. Rosselló, warned that a humanitarian crisis looming could cause a massive exodus from the island. President Trump responded that night by taking Twitter to say that the island had to face its huge debt:. "... food, water and medical are the main priorities - and doing well #FEMA" was more than 90 degrees, and the power was in most of the island, even in most of the hospitals of prostrate people in a bed they were having People with respirators lacked electricity to power the machines.

On that day, 135 people died in Puerto Rico. In comparison, 75 people died on that day in 2016 and 60 died in 2015. One mayor of the town went to the command of the Federal Emergency Management Agency after that day and shouted for help. Statistics show his city, Manati, was one of the highest death rates in September. With communications down along the island and bodies accumulating in morgues from hospitals, the government was still clinging to its early death count estimate 16. On September 29, Hector M. Pesquera, secretary of public security of Puerto Rico, said in an interview that the death count does not swell by much. "It's going to go up, I'm pretty sure it's going to go up," he said. "It's not going to double or triple, it's not like an earthquake where you have a building and you do not know if there were 20 in the building or 300 in the building until you get all the debris out."

The day said that 127 people died, 57 more than the previous year. On October 3, almost two weeks after the storm, Mr. Trump visited the island and praised the official low death toll. He referred to the 1,833 deaths in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina as a "real catastrophe." "Sixteen people certified," said Trump. "Sixteen people in front of thousands. You can be very proud of all your people and all our people to work together." For that visit, an additional 556 people had died in Puerto Rico compared to the same long period of two years