Monday, 9 February 2009
UPDATE: 108 are now confirmed dead in Victorian bushfires
"I knew something was not right. The sky went crimson with ash and I could smell all the smoke in the atmosphere.
It was like a thick, dense, dirty fog. There was smoke everywhere. It looked like Armageddon or something from a horror movie. I hope I never experience anything like that again."
Read this Brit's account of what Melbourne was like yesterday at the 'BBC' here.
More here.
It was like a thick, dense, dirty fog. There was smoke everywhere. It looked like Armageddon or something from a horror movie. I hope I never experience anything like that again."
Read this Brit's account of what Melbourne was like yesterday at the 'BBC' here.
More here.
Crazy & fuct up
Satellite image of the fires in Victoria."...One silver lining amid the devastation: the fires have not posed a significant threat to more populous areas, including Melbourne, as they sweep across rural outskirts of southeastern Australia...Still...the state is so dry from lack of rain that there are no safe areas. Wildfires are an annual event in Australia. But this year, a combination of factors has made them especially intense: a drought, dry bush and one of the most powerful heat waves in memory. Temperatures in parts of Melbourne reached 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) in the last few weeks. Dozens of heat-related deaths have been reported.
By Sunday, the temperatures had dropped to the mid-20s in the area. Officials were hoping for some help from milder weather moving in. Droplets of rain had started to fall in some areas. Northern Australia, on the other hand, is grappling with a different problem. Sixty percent of the state of Queensland was flooded, officials reported, and residents were warned to be on the lookout for crocodiles in urban areas..."
From 'CNN' here.
From 'CNN' here.
SADDER UPDATE: 96 dead in Victorian bushfires
A fire truck is dwarfed by flames from a bushfire about 125 kilometres west of Melbourne on Saturday. (Associated Press)Story from the 'BBC' here.
"In Victoria, witnesses described seeing trees exploding and skies raining ash on Saturday as temperatures of up 47 C combined with blasting winds to create furnace-like conditions.
Police said they were hampered from reaching burned-out areas to confirm details of deaths and property loss.
But Victoria Police Commissioner Christine Nixon confirmed deaths at a dozen sites. At least 18 people were hospitalized with burns and eight were in critical condition, hospital officials said.
Police said they believed groups of bodies had been found in cars in at least two places — suggesting families or groups of friends were engulfed in flames as they tried to flee.
In total, 49 deaths were confirmed by Sunday evening, said police spokeswoman Leanne Quentin, and officials were still working their way into burned-out regions, meaning the toll could rise.
The fires were so massive they were visible from space Saturday. NASA released satellite photographs showing a white cloud of smoke across southeastern Australia.
Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said police suspected some of the fires were set deliberately. He predicted it would take days to get all the blazes under control.
Victoria Country Fire Authority official Stuart Ord told Sky News about 1,190 square kilometres had been burned by early Sunday.
Marysville, a former gold rush town that was home to about 800 people, was almost completely wiped out, witnesses said. Video taken from the air showed street after street of burned-out homes in the town, about 130 kilometers north of Melbourne.
"Marysville is no more," Senior Const. Brian Cross told The Associated Press as he manned a checkpoint Sunday in nearby Healesville on a road leading into the town.
The 30 or so town residents who had not fled before Saturday's fire huddled on a sports field overnight to escape the flames and were brought out Sunday, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
No deaths were reported in Marysville, but police sealed off the town because they feared bodies would be found there.
Another of the hardest-hit districts was Kinglake, a normally sleepy region of farms and weekend-getaway spots, where at least a dozen people were reported killed. It was there that six bodies were found in one car.
Victoria Country Fire Service spokesman Hayden Lane said 640 houses had been confirmed destroyed — 550 in the Kinglake district — and that tally was expected to rise.
Residents reported the fire tearing through the region at high speed, burning everything before it.
Temperatures in the area dropped to around 25 C on Sunday, but along with cooler conditions came wind changes that officials said could push fires in unpredictable directions.
Dozens of fires were also burning in New South Wales state, where temperatures remained high for the third consecutive day. Properties were not under immediate threat.
Police said they detained and questioned a man in connection with a blaze but released him without charge.
Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. Government research shows that about half of the roughly 60,000 fires each year are deliberately lit or suspicious. Lightning and people using machinery near dry brush are other causes.
Australia's deadliest fires were in 1983, when blazes killed 75 people and razed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia."
abridged from here.
"In Victoria, witnesses described seeing trees exploding and skies raining ash on Saturday as temperatures of up 47 C combined with blasting winds to create furnace-like conditions.
Police said they were hampered from reaching burned-out areas to confirm details of deaths and property loss.
But Victoria Police Commissioner Christine Nixon confirmed deaths at a dozen sites. At least 18 people were hospitalized with burns and eight were in critical condition, hospital officials said.
Police said they believed groups of bodies had been found in cars in at least two places — suggesting families or groups of friends were engulfed in flames as they tried to flee.
In total, 49 deaths were confirmed by Sunday evening, said police spokeswoman Leanne Quentin, and officials were still working their way into burned-out regions, meaning the toll could rise.
The fires were so massive they were visible from space Saturday. NASA released satellite photographs showing a white cloud of smoke across southeastern Australia.
Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said police suspected some of the fires were set deliberately. He predicted it would take days to get all the blazes under control.
Victoria Country Fire Authority official Stuart Ord told Sky News about 1,190 square kilometres had been burned by early Sunday.
Marysville, a former gold rush town that was home to about 800 people, was almost completely wiped out, witnesses said. Video taken from the air showed street after street of burned-out homes in the town, about 130 kilometers north of Melbourne.
"Marysville is no more," Senior Const. Brian Cross told The Associated Press as he manned a checkpoint Sunday in nearby Healesville on a road leading into the town.
The 30 or so town residents who had not fled before Saturday's fire huddled on a sports field overnight to escape the flames and were brought out Sunday, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
No deaths were reported in Marysville, but police sealed off the town because they feared bodies would be found there.
Another of the hardest-hit districts was Kinglake, a normally sleepy region of farms and weekend-getaway spots, where at least a dozen people were reported killed. It was there that six bodies were found in one car.
Victoria Country Fire Service spokesman Hayden Lane said 640 houses had been confirmed destroyed — 550 in the Kinglake district — and that tally was expected to rise.
Residents reported the fire tearing through the region at high speed, burning everything before it.
Temperatures in the area dropped to around 25 C on Sunday, but along with cooler conditions came wind changes that officials said could push fires in unpredictable directions.
Dozens of fires were also burning in New South Wales state, where temperatures remained high for the third consecutive day. Properties were not under immediate threat.
Police said they detained and questioned a man in connection with a blaze but released him without charge.
Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. Government research shows that about half of the roughly 60,000 fires each year are deliberately lit or suspicious. Lightning and people using machinery near dry brush are other causes.
Australia's deadliest fires were in 1983, when blazes killed 75 people and razed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia."
abridged from here.
Sunday, 8 February 2009
$10 million government fund for bushfire victims
Premier John Brumby breaks down while speaking at a press conference at Kilmore. Photo: John Woudstra
A fund to help communities affected by what have been called the worst fires in Victoria's history has been started with a $10 million contribution equally shared by the State and Federal governments.
Outside the CFA station at Kangaroo Ground, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also pledged the strength of the Australian Defence Force to help Victoria in its time of crisis.
Brian Naylor and wife Moiree amongst the dead
I had better explain to non Australian readers that Brian Naylor was perhaps the Australian equivalent of the American newsreader Walter Cronkite or in Britain Trevor McDonald.
Story here.
Now 84 dead
The number of dead is likely to rise even further as blazes continue to ravage the state with almost 312,000 hectares affected. At least 700 homes have been destroyed - 550 of those in Kinglake and surrounding areas.
UPDATE:
Hell on earth hits Kinglake
Greg Roberts
February 8, 2009 - 10:09PM
The end of the world reached the Victorian mountain town of Kinglake on Saturday, February 7.
Burnt out cars, many containing charred bodies, litter the road leading up to the town which now consists of a handful of still standing shops and hundreds of blackened piles of ash which used to be home to Kinglake's 1,500 residents.
As Victoria burnt on Saturday, a raging inferno raced through the state's central highlands, killing at least 12 in Kinglake itself and 10 in Kinglake West, leaving the once-idyllic community a charred ghost town.
Among the tragic stories to emerge from Kinglake were of a young boy and a girl burnt alive inside their home.
"The kids perished, their mother got out but she couldn't get the kids out," Kinglake resident Mary-Anne Mercuri told AAP.
Ms Mercuri also spoke of sisters in their 20s whose bodies were found in the front of their rented house.
"Two young girls around the corner from me were found in the front of their house. There's no way they could have got out. They would have tried to escape but there was nowhere to go."
The mother-of-three said that when the fire arrived it felt like exploding red burning bullets were being shot horizontally at them.
"These big burning chunks started falling from the sky, there was a lot of power behind them. I guess they were exploding parts of trees," Ms Mercuri said.
"We are lucky to be alive."
Her friend, Mandy Darkin, described the terrifying moment the fire arrived at Kinglake without warning.
"I was working at the local restaurant and we were all carrying on like nothing was going on but then word came that we should go home," the mother of five said.
"Soon after, I looked outside the window and said: `Whoa we are out of here, this is going to be bad'.
"I could see it coming. I just remember the blackness and you could hear it, it sounded like a train.
"I raced home in my car, straight into the driveway, placed all the kids in the house and within two minutes it was here and it was as dark as midnight at 4.30pm."
The 25km journey by road from Whittlesea to Kinglake is a cross between a trip into a war zone and a natural disaster zone.
The typical sunburnt landscape of southeast Australia gives way to a fire-burnt one with black scorched trees and earth.
Property after property is destroyed, burnt out cars line the side of the road, some sit stranded in the middle of the street, while a dead horse, carcass still smouldering, blocks the sporadic traffic.
The remains of two cars which collided head-on in their frantic bid to escape the blaze lie mangled on the road, and a five-car pile-up reveals the desperation of residents fleeing for their lives when the fire arrived.
It is believed six bodies were found in one car.
A media convoy being escorted to Kinglake was delayed at one stage as emergency crews removed another body from one of the burnt-out cars.
© 2009 AAP
UPDATE:
Hell on earth hits Kinglake
Greg Roberts
February 8, 2009 - 10:09PM
The end of the world reached the Victorian mountain town of Kinglake on Saturday, February 7.
Burnt out cars, many containing charred bodies, litter the road leading up to the town which now consists of a handful of still standing shops and hundreds of blackened piles of ash which used to be home to Kinglake's 1,500 residents.
As Victoria burnt on Saturday, a raging inferno raced through the state's central highlands, killing at least 12 in Kinglake itself and 10 in Kinglake West, leaving the once-idyllic community a charred ghost town.
Among the tragic stories to emerge from Kinglake were of a young boy and a girl burnt alive inside their home.
"The kids perished, their mother got out but she couldn't get the kids out," Kinglake resident Mary-Anne Mercuri told AAP.
Ms Mercuri also spoke of sisters in their 20s whose bodies were found in the front of their rented house.
"Two young girls around the corner from me were found in the front of their house. There's no way they could have got out. They would have tried to escape but there was nowhere to go."
The mother-of-three said that when the fire arrived it felt like exploding red burning bullets were being shot horizontally at them.
"These big burning chunks started falling from the sky, there was a lot of power behind them. I guess they were exploding parts of trees," Ms Mercuri said.
"We are lucky to be alive."
Her friend, Mandy Darkin, described the terrifying moment the fire arrived at Kinglake without warning.
"I was working at the local restaurant and we were all carrying on like nothing was going on but then word came that we should go home," the mother of five said.
"Soon after, I looked outside the window and said: `Whoa we are out of here, this is going to be bad'.
"I could see it coming. I just remember the blackness and you could hear it, it sounded like a train.
"I raced home in my car, straight into the driveway, placed all the kids in the house and within two minutes it was here and it was as dark as midnight at 4.30pm."
The 25km journey by road from Whittlesea to Kinglake is a cross between a trip into a war zone and a natural disaster zone.
The typical sunburnt landscape of southeast Australia gives way to a fire-burnt one with black scorched trees and earth.
Property after property is destroyed, burnt out cars line the side of the road, some sit stranded in the middle of the street, while a dead horse, carcass still smouldering, blocks the sporadic traffic.
The remains of two cars which collided head-on in their frantic bid to escape the blaze lie mangled on the road, and a five-car pile-up reveals the desperation of residents fleeing for their lives when the fire arrived.
It is believed six bodies were found in one car.
A media convoy being escorted to Kinglake was delayed at one stage as emergency crews removed another body from one of the burnt-out cars.
© 2009 AAP
Hell on Earth
"Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours. Many good people lie dead, many injured," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters, deploying army units to help 3,000 firefighters battling the flames.
UPDATE: 65 confirmed dead.
UPDATE: 65 confirmed dead.
UPDATE: 'Worst day in history' Vic fires kill 14
Authorities in Victoria will on Sunday begin the grim search for bodies following Saturday's devastating bushfires, which have already claimed 14 lives.
Police expect the death toll to surpass 40.
All 14 of the confirmed deaths were in towns northwest of Melbourne - six people in one car were killed at Kinglake, four died at Wandong, three at Strathewen and one in Clonbinane.
Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said police would be able to undertake a more thorough search of burnt-out properties on Sunday with the fire in the area under control and cooler conditions.
"This is an absolute tragedy for the state and we believe the figure may even get worse," Mr Walshe told reporters late on Saturday.
"We base that on the fact we're only just getting into these areas now... to search buildings and properties these have been very very significant fires... the figure could get into the 40s."
Police spokesman Senior Constable Wayne Wilson said the clarification on a final death toll would take time.
"We have the official toll at 14. Obviously under the conditions we expect it to go higher, (but) we've got to go through these places in the daylight, where we can search them properly," he told ABC Radio.
"These sort of situations it does take time for clarification to come through... particularly when you are dealing with death.
"We do it as quickly as we can but we've got to do it in a methodical and accurate way."
Meanwhile, the bushfire burning around Kilmore was continuing to cause concern early on Sunday morning, despite a cool change moving in.
The Country Fire Authority (CFA) said the Kilmore East fire, burning in the Yarra Valley near Kinglake, was burning in a northeasterly direction.
The CFA said the wind change at 7.30pm (AEDT) on Saturday produced strong southwesterly gusts, moving the fire activity to a northeastern direction.
Weather conditions have turned favourable overnight and expected to continue to moderate.
But the CFA has warned communities of Kinglake, Kinglake West, Toolangie, Glenburn, Strathewen, Chum Creek, Dixons Creek, Castella, Pheasant Creek, Doreen, Yan Yean, Woodstock, Mernda, Mittons Bridge, Hurstbridge, St Andrews, Panton Hills, Arthurs Creek, Smiths Gully, Christmas Hills, Healesville, Yarra Glen, Coldstream, Tarrawarra and Steels Creek have been and may be directly impacted upon by this fire.
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