IN BRIEF

Russia claims shooting down 3 Ukrainian drones island struggles to cope with the sheer number of dead.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden said he would travel to Hawaii as soon as possible to survey the damage and comfort survivors.

The 80-year-old Democrat, who was speaking during a visit to a factory in Wisconsin, dedicated the start of his speech to the situation in Hawaii, where at at that time 99 people had been reported killed.

“My wife Jill and I are going to travel to Hawaii as soon as we can,” Biden said, noting that he did not want to “get in the way” of relief efforts.

Any presidential trip is a complicated operation in terms of logistics and security, requiring multiple local agencies to cooperate -- and potentially taking manpower away from the situation at hand.

Biden, who quickly declared a “major disaster” in Hawaii, unblocking federal aid funds, said he had spoken multiple times with Hawaii Governor Josh Green.

“That’s a fancy word of saying whatever you need, you’re going to get,” said Biden, who has been criticized by his Republican opponents for a response they have deemed insufficient.

Green warned against any attempt at a land grab in the devastated remains of Lahaina, as locals fret that deep-pocketed developers might take advantage of people’s desperation and try to buy up plots that can be turned into luxury housing or more lucrative short-term rentals.

“Our goal is to have a local commitment -- forever -- to this community, as we rebuild,” he said.

“So we will be making sure that we do all that we can to prevent that land from falling into the hands of people from the outside,” Green said.

The difficult process of identifying the dead inched forwards Tuesday, with officials saying they had collected DNA samples from 41 people whose relatives were missing.

Only four of the dead have been identified so far, and officials from Maui County said they would only release their names once they were sure families had been informed.

The island’s police chief has said that many of the bodies are so badly charred that they are unrecognizable, such was the ferocity of the blaze. AFP