AKIPRESS.COM - The governor of Puerto Rico ordered all government agencies to reopen their books and initiate a recount and review of certified deaths that have occurred since Hurricane Maria, after weeks of reporting by various news outlets pointed to a possible severe undercount of storm fatalities, Washington Post reported.

The territorial government has attributed 64 official deaths to the storm and its aftermath, but the New York Times and the Center for Investigative Journalism have used vital-statistics data to show that the number of deaths in the weeks after the storm far exceeded those of the same time period in previous years. The independent analyses put the death count at probably more than 1,000.

Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told The Washington Post last week that there was “no intent to hide the number of deaths” relative to the hurricane and that “accountability broke down” in the wake of the storm. But he said his government is committed to reevaluating death certificates that attributed many of the casualties to natural causes.

The government will reexamine medical records, interview family members and call doctors for more information to determine whether deaths identified as “natural” need to be reclassified.