Maui residents say the actual wildfire death toll so far is likely closer to 480 and reveal the MPD's morgue office (pictured) ran out of body bags in the early days of the ongoing search and recovery operation in Lahaina
The figure is quadruple that of the official number of 111 - and some of the relatives of the victims have been left to uncover the remains of their loved ones themselves due to the glacial progress of the search and recovery operation.
On Tuesday, Maui mayor Richard Bissen said just 25 per cent of the stricken town had been searched, although he expected that figure to increase to 85 per cent by Saturday.
But DailyMail.com photos taken on Wednesday showed hundreds of cars and vehicles still unsearched - with just a handful marked with an orange X to show they'd been looked at.
Cars and buildings marked with an ‘X’ can be seen throughout the city to indicate that they have been searched, but hundreds more remain to be inspected
As recovery efforts continued Thursday, officials confirmed the death toll had hit 110 but admitted more than 1,000 people remain unaccounted for – many of whom are likely to have perished.
For Allisen Medina, 24, who has lived in Maui for five years and has spent the past two weeks making perilous trips into Lahaina to help burned out residents, that is still too slow.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, she said: 'People have been doing their own recovery.
'I know there are at least 480 dead here in Maui and I don't understand why they're [the authorities] not saying that. Maybe it's to do with DNA or something.
'I do know they ran out of body bags by the first or second night and had to ship some in from the mainland.'
Allisen says the slow recovery process has led to family members being left to find the charred corpses of their loved ones themselves, including a friend of hers who lost four family members.
She told DailyMail.com: 'I have a personal friend who lost her parents, sister and her 10-year-old nephew. She went in [to Lahaina] and saw them there.'
She added: '100 percent not enough is being done so people are doing it themselves. The Government, relief organizations - they're not doing anything.'
She added: 'We have the right to know what's going on. FEMA came here to help with the recovery [process] but we don't see them.
'We're only 100 miles from Oahu which has several military bases. Why is the response so lacking? Why are they doing so little? Why is nothing else being done?'
Allisen also hit out at emergency services boss Herman Andaya who made the decision not to sound Maui's emergency sirens - telling a press conference that they are associated with tsunamis and not fires.
She said: 'Why didn't they turn on the sirens? They're not just for tsunamis - go to their website and it says they're for fires, other disasters, everything.
'What he said is so disgusting and disrespectful - does he really think people would run towards fire, that they wouldn't have looked out and seen it?'
Other stories that back up Allisen's account have also come to light with Southwest flight attendant Sarah Trost, 30, of Sacramento, California, posting a video to TikTok on Tuesday sharing details of a conversation with a part-time morgue worker who drove her shuttle from the airport to her hotel that day.
Trost said the man had also told her that 480 people have been confirmed dead as Allisen claims, and that authorities have actually only searched 13 percent of Lahaina so far.
The morgue worker, who is volunteering in the search, also described finding scores of bodies, adding that many were families - including young children - who had died at their homes in each other's' arms, unable to escape the flames.
'He found so many children, children and moms holding each other. Infants, toddlers, the unimaginable. Husbands and wives, whole entire [families] in a room just huddling together, burning to death,' Trost said.
'It's all bones. So he's grabbing the bones with the ash shoveling them into body bags. They have no more room on the island in the morgue so they're shipping in containers to hold those body bags.'
Many of the bodies have been left unrecognizable by the fire with authorities asking friends and family of the more than 1,000 people still missing to submit their DNA so the remains of their loved ones can be identified.
As of Thursday, just five people had been formally identified, with only two named publicly after their families were informed: Robert Dyckman, 74, and Buddy Jantoc, 79, both of whom had lived in Lahaina.
The soaring death toll means authorities have also had to bring in mobile morgues with five refrigerated trucks parked outside the Maui Police Department morgue office to store the remains of fire victims.
DailyMail.com photos taken Thursday show bodies are still being brought in from the wreckage of Lahaina with eight body bags seen arriving during the morning.
Allisen says the challenge facing locals like her is now how to help fire victims who have lost everything while also allowing islanders time to grieve.
She has made multiple runs into Lahaina with supplies for burned out families but said she is fed up with FEMA and the American Red Cross who aren't distributing items quickly enough and 'are adding red tape to everything'.
She said: 'The Red Cross arrived four days late and they're not doing anything. They're supposed to help and not just stand around.
She added: 'We don't want you here adding red tape to everything. FEMA are saying they don't have the means to distribute everything that's been donated. They're stockpiling the same things we have been distributing.'
Allisen hopes support and recovery operations will now be sped up so locals get a chance to grieve but also said she would like to see the outpouring of sympathy from around the world result in continued help through the rebuilding process.
She said: 'We're getting a lot of support now but this will be a long road. People come here from all around the world.
'If they want to come here, I hope they will continue to support us in the long run.'
She added: 'I'm in no way a victim but I have a platform and it's my responsibility to share what I have seen.
'It's not about me but I want to do everything I can to help.'
If Covid taught mankind ONE lesson, it's this, Authorities lie.