Hawaii fire victims caught between gov't inaction, commercial greed: CNN

Residents in Maui County after the devastating wildfires "have become do-it-yourself first responders" amid limited governmental support and "a real estate urge to gentrify them out of their homeland," said CNN on Tuesday, reported Xinhua.

After a weekend tour of Lahaina's ruins, Administrator of Federal Emergency Management Agency Deanne Criswell said that the agency has "a limited amount of funding that can help support some repairs to homes but as we see here, there is no repairing some of these homes," reported CNN.

Meanwhile, "in a playground of billionaires and skyrocketing home prices, there's concern that won't be enough for some families to rebuild and stay," said the CNN report. Local residents got calls from someone wanting to buy their property, and similar stories on social media have raised as much scorn as the insensitive snorkelers, the report said.

"We've already been priced out of a lot of these homes and had three to four families working multiple jobs just to stay," local resident Alika Peneku was quoted as saying. "So now I can see how the pressure is probably at the breaking point but -- do not sell your property. Do not run away. Please. Just hang on as long as you can ... It's hard to be a Hawaiian in Hawaii."