Hurricane’s toll raised to 2,975

Number is almost twice the previous estimate of deaths in last year’s tragedy

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s governor raised the US territory’s official death toll from Hurricane Maria from 64 to nearly 3,000 on Tuesday after an independent study found that the number of people who succumbed in the desperate, sweltering aftermath had been severely undercounted.

The report found that an estimated 2,975 deaths could be attributed directly or indirectly to Maria from the time it struck in September 2017 to mid-February of this year.

The finding is almost twice the government’s previous estimate, included in a recent report to Congress, that there were 1,427 more deaths than normal in the three months after the storm.

The latest Puerto Rico figure was derived from comparisons between predicted mortality under normal circumstances and deaths documented after the storm, a number that turned out to be 22 percent higher.

Researchers said they adjusted for various factors that could account for fluctuations in mortality, most notably the displacement of about 241,000 residents who fled the island in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

They also found that the poor and elderly were disproportionately hard hit in terms of risk of fatalities.

The emergency response to Maria became highly politicized as the Trump administration was castigated as being slow to recognize the gravity of

ALVIN BAEZ / REUTERS A woman looks as her husband climbs down a ladder at a partially destroyed bridge in Utuado, Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria hit the area in September last year.