Puerto Rican funeral homes say Maria's death toll is much higher than reported

Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria.
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Puerto Rico's official death toll from Hurricane Maria is, as of this writing, 36 — but that number may be far too low. BuzzFeed News journalists who spoke to funeral home directors in San Juan as well as two small towns in the island's interior report there are "significantly more corpses" with storm-related deaths than have been counted by the government.

In San Juan specifically, there are "dozens of bodies" at four funeral homes which are not included in the official tally. How many of those deaths are storm-related is unknown.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.