New study places Puerto Rico death toll from Hurricane Maria at more than 4,600 — 70 times higher than official count

May 29--The death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria ravaged the island last fall was grossly undercounted by the island's government, according to a study published Tuesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

More than 4,645 people were killed as a result of the storm last September, scientists with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found -- making it more than 70 times deadlier than previously reported.

The authors of the study admit that even their numbers may be low, saying the body count could be as high as 5,000.

The official government death toll has stood at just 64 since the storm caused catastrophic damage to its infrastructure, including knocking out the entire power grid.

"Our results indicate that the official count of 64 is a substantial underestimate of the true burden of mortality after Hurricane Maria," the authors wrote.

Only a 1900 tropical cyclone in Galveston, Texas, which took an estimated 6,000 to 12,000 lives, comes close.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11, by comparison, killed 2,996 people.

Hurricane Maria barreled into Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 20, 2017, with winds of up to 155 miles per hour and intense rainfall that resulted in massive flooding in the U.S. territory.

President Trump touted the low death toll as proof of the effectiveness of the federal response. In a visit to the island nearly two weeks after the storm, he told Puerto Rican officials they should be "very proud" the body count wasn't bad compared to a "real catastrophe like (Hurricane) Katrina," which claimed more than 1,800 lives in 2005.

However, more then eight months later, Puero Rico still suffers from a lack of running water, electricity and general services -- deficiencies that may have increased the storm's death toll.

"If these estimates are accurate, they would mean Maria's devastation ranks among the most deadly disasters in U.S. history," U.S. Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-NY) said in response to the report.

"By obscuring this, many were left to believe the Trump Administration's mythology that Puerto Rico was not hit hard by Maria."

Calculating the total number of dead in the wake of a natural disaster can be difficult, the researchers said.

Every disaster-related death must be confirmed by the island medical examiner's office, which requires that bodies be transported to San Juan or that a medical examiner travel to the municipality to verify the death.

The official death estimate has repeatedly been questioned by locals and experts, many of them blasting officials for their lack of transparency.

The island's medical examiner did not immediately respond to calls or emails left for comment, but Carlos Mercader, the executive director of Puerto Rico's Federal Affairs Administration, said the local government welcomes the study and commissioned George Washington University to conduct a separate probe.

"Both studies will help us better prepare for future natural disasters and prevent lives from being lost," Mercader said.

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