No bodies washed up on shore following Maui wildfires, officials say | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: 183 bodies washed up on Lanai

An Aug. 24 Instagram video (direct link, archive link) featuring a screen recording of a TikTok video shows a man talking about people jumping into the ocean to escape the wildfires in Lahaina on the island of Maui.

"183 bodies have washed up on Lanai," reads the text at the top of the video.

The video also claims hundreds of bodies are sitting in freezers waiting to be identified and 800 people have been reported missing.

The Instagram video garnered more than 100 likes in five days, while the original TikTok garnered more than 1,000 likes in nine days. Similar versions of the claim have been shared on Instagram.

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Our rating: False

Officials say no bodies have washed up on the island of Lanai following the wildfires.

No bodies found on Lanai

The U.S. Coast Guard saved 17 people who jumped into the ocean to escape the recent wildfires in Lahaina, according to an Aug. 11 statement. The Maui Coast Guard Station located and assisted 40 additional people ashore.

The Coast Guard hasn't announced any dead bodies washing up on nearby islands, however.

The man in the video is a Christian pastor named Jack Hibbs, who spoke about the victims in Maui during one of his live-streamed sermons. He doesn't provide evidence to back up his claims about the dead bodies during this sermon.

Alana Pico, a spokesperson for the Maui Police Department, told USA TODAY the claim is false, saying as of Aug. 29 no remains had washed ashore on Lanai. Matthew West, a petty officer first class with the U.S. Coast Guard, told PolitiFact the same thing.

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As of Aug. 30, only 61 of the 115 confirmed dead had yet to be identified, not hundreds, as Hibbs claimed.

The number of those reported missing is a bit more complicated.

Maui officials published a list of 388 names on Aug. 24 of people who had been reported unaccounted for following the wildfires. One day after publishing the list of names, Maui officials said they were contacted by more than 100 people from the list who said they were safe.

These names make up part of an even broader list of up to 1,100 people reported missing that has yet to be validated by the FBI, according to CBS News.

USA TODAY reached out to Hibbs, the 14th District of the U.S. Coast Guard and the Instagram user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response. The TikTok user couldn't be contacted.

PolitiFact also debunked this claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video falsely claims bodies washed up on Hawaiian island | Fact check