(Reuters) - The official death toll on Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, the most powerful storm to strike the Caribbean island in almost a century, was raised on Tuesday from just 64 to nearly 3,000, based on a study ordered by the governor of the U.S. territory. An independent investigation ordered by Puerto Rico's government estimates that 2,975 people died within six months as a result of Hurricane Maria.The findings issued Tuesday by the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University contrast sharply with the official death toll of 64.It's also about double the government's previous interim estimate of 1,400.Researchers say there was a 22 percent overall increase in the number of deaths from September 2017 to February 2018 compared to previous years.They say the initial low counts came partly because physicians lacked training on how to certify deaths after a disaster.They say the elderly and impoverished were most at risk.A spokesman for Puerto Rico Gov. Tuesday, Rossello said the study's estimate, for now, would become the official death toll from Maria – making the storm the second-deadliest in U.S. history, trailing only the Galveston, Texas, hurricane that killed more than 6,000 people in 1900. The storm made landfall on Puerto Rico with winds close to 150 miles per hour (241 km per hour) on Sept. 17 and plowed a path of destruction across the island, causing property damage estimated at $90 billion and leaving much of the island without electricity for months. We will never forget!”

Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken School of Public Health, told ABC News the death rates have still not returned to the baseline, and that the deaths for the poor and elderly did not stop after the study concluded in February. SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Puerto Rico’s governor raised the U.S. territory’s official death toll from Hurricane Maria from 64 to 2,975 on Tuesday after an independent study found that the number of people who succumbed in the desperate, sweltering aftermath had been severely undercounted.
A study from the Milken Institute School of Public Health finds that a total of 2,975 people died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria, bringing the official death toll up from 64.