The doctors, dentists and anthropologists striving to identify Maui's victims

FILE PHOTO: The fire ravaged town of Lahaina on the island of Maui in Hawaii, U.S., August 15, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

(Reuters) - Inside a temporary morgue near the Maui County coroner's office, a team of specialists – including forensic pathologists, X-ray technicians, fingerprint experts and forensic dentists – labor 12 hours a day to identify the charred remains of the victims of this month's cataclysmic wildfire.

They are members of the federal Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team program, or DMORT, deployed when a mass fatality incident overwhelms local authorities.