'No comment, no action' response to deadly wildfires

The death toll in the Maui wildfires in Hawaii has risen to 106, Maui county officials said on Tuesday, a week after the flames started sweeping through parts of the Hawaiian island. There are still more than 1,000 people missing.

Not only was it the deadliest fire in Hawaii's history, it was also the deadliest in the United States in more than 100 years. The Joe Biden administration has been heavily criticized for its slow and ineffectual response to the disaster. But it seems that it has still not learned the lesson.

The US people have enough reasons to ask why the alarm system in the second-largest island of Hawaii didn't go off. The local government had previously claimed that Hawaii had the world's largest public alert system. According to US media, Hawaii has more than 4,000 warning sirens, covering most islands in Hawaii, to warn residents and visitors of threats to their safety.

The fire broke out on Wednesday last week. Soon after it was spotted, the government declared the fire was under control. People therefore carried on with their lives. But the fire suddenly got out of control at 3:30 pm that day. If the government hadn't declared the fire was under control so early, the people would have had plenty of time to escape.

While the Hawaiians were struggling, US President Joe Biden was on vacation, riding his bike on a beach. What made the US people even angrier was that when asked about the rising death toll from the wildfires, Biden, fresh from sunbathing on the beach, responded nonchalantly: No comment.

To the anger of the US people, especially those affected by the disaster, the overall response of the US government can only be described as heartlessly slow: the survivors cannot find their missing relatives; the homeless people cannot find a place to sleep; a large number of cars trying to bring relief supplies in are stuck in traffic. No wonder the US media commented that people's fury is smoldering in the ashes, criticizing the official response as "disappointing", while local residents lamented the bureaucracy of the US government. "Everyone is directing, but no one is acting," as they said.

At the Camp David meeting on Friday, Biden should explain why his administration can ignore the cries of the US people and focus only on containing other countries' development.

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