Earlier on Monday, Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Public Safety Héctor Pesquera told Latino USA that he would welcome any journalist who had information that would contradict the government’s official death count from Hurricane Maria to meet with him.
“We have said many, many times. We will sit down with anyone and will go back and study whatever case that needs to be studied, and then will make a final determination,” Pesquera said. “We’ve said that many, many times. But no one, no one, to this day has come forward and said, ‘alright, we want to meet, these are our body counts, these are the names, these are the circumstances, these are the places.’ Nothing. No one.”
The government’s official count of hurricane-related deaths is at 51, even after reports from outlets such as the Center for Investigative Journalism, VOX, USA Today, CNN and BuzzFeed have raised the possibility that the death count could be higher.
To listen to the entire interview with Pesquera, go here.
In addition, Pesquera’s office shared preliminary data on deaths in Puerto Rico in the last three months, noting that the government is continuing to determine how many deaths happened after Hurricane Maria and whether deaths that occurred since September 20 —when Maria landed in Puerto Rico— were caused by the hurricane’s direct hit or by post-hurricane effects.
What Secretary Pesquera’s office sent me right now about preliminary death stats per month in #PuertoRico. October clearly not complete yet. pic.twitter.com/JUO0zShe0v
— Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77) October 30, 2017
Note says that #HurricaneMaria has impacted how data gets recorded and data is not finalized.
— Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77) October 30, 2017
Bottom of document says this: “Due to the passage of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the process to record deaths in the Demographic Registry…”
— Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77) October 30, 2017
“has been impacted and has led to a delay in data entry. For that reason, the total number of deaths occurring in August and September…”
— Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77) October 30, 2017
“are being processed manually and have not been finalized.”
— Julio Ricardo Varela (@julito77) October 30, 2017