Puerto Rico’s government raised its official Hurricane Maria death toll to 2,975 yesterday in the wake of a new estimate from researchers.
The new figure is 46 times larger than the previous toll the Puerto Rican government released in December 2017, when officials said 64 people had died as a result of the storm.
It comes on the same day researchers from George Washington University revealed findings from a study on storm-related deaths commissioned by the US commonwealth’s government.
“This is unprecedented devastation,” Governor Ricardo Rossello told reporters. However he said the new death toll is only an approximation, not a concrete list of names.
Moving forward, he said, officials will continue to investigate deaths from the storm and refine the official tally.
