Puerto Rico’ s guv pledged to re-examine its main death toll from Hurricane Maria after independent examinations positioned the variety of storm-related deaths at approximately 15 times greater than the area’ s findings, The New York Times reported.

The island has actually reported simply 64 storm-related deaths, while independent evaluations by media outlets approximate the number to be around 1,000 when comparing deaths on the island from the very same time in previous years.

Gov. Ricardo A. Rossell, in a declaration on Monday, stated all deaths after the September storm that were credited to natural causes will be examined. This evident about-face follows his administration’ s pattern of evading issues and concerns about unaccounted deaths.

Rossell, in his declaration, confessed that the number “ might be greater than the main count licensed to death.”

“ We constantly anticipated that the variety of hurricane-related deaths would increase as we got more accurate details — not rumor– and this evaluation will guarantee we are properly counting everyone, ” he included.

The Category 4 storm, that made landfall on Sept. 20, knocked out power to 3.4 million citizens throughout the island. Since press time Monday, almost 3 months later on, just 70 percent of the power grid is running.

That prevalent absence of power prevented important medical treatment, most likely adding to the spread of illness and the high variety of deaths.

An evaluation by the Times discovered that 1,052 more individuals than typical passed away throughout the island in the 42 days after the storm. The leading causes of death in September were diabetes and Alzheimer’ s illness. There were likewise 50 percent more deaths from sepsis, a lethal health problem that stems from infection.

Puerto Rico’ s Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI) likewise discovered that the typical day-to-day death rate increased by 43 percent following the storm, with the majority of those who passed away being over the age of 50 and passing away in medical facilities and retirement home.

The boost in the everyday death rate peaked on Sept. 21 and 25 at 80 percent. Deaths likewise increased by 23.3 percent in October, the CPI discovered.

Updating the death and examining toll is anticipated to be a prolonged procedure, with authorities needing to interview member of the family and medical professionals who signed death certificates, the Times reported.

There’ s the possibility that numerous deaths indirectly triggered by the storm may not get counted since of the method the bodies were managed.

BuzzFeed initially reported in October that crematorium personnel on the island confessed to burning the bodies of those who had actually passed away after the storm from factors like the failure of dialysis and oxygen makers after the electrical power headed out. Their deaths were marked as “ natural causes. ”

The U.S. area ’ s Department of PublicSafety validated to HuffPost following that report that more than 900 bodies had actually been licensed for cremation by the federal government, regardless of medical inspectors not appearing to have actually carried out health examinations of the bodies.