Farin Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 • 'Hell and its fury' in Victoria, prime minister declares • Scores of deaths exceed Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 [smaller]David Pallister and agencies | guardian.co.uk | Sunday 8 February 2009 | Link [/smaller] The death toll in the raging Australian bushfires has risen to at least 84, making it the country's worst fire disaster. Police believe more bodies will be found in small towns razed by wildfires in the state of Victoria, the hardest hit area with more than 700 homes destroyed. Thousands of firefighters battled for a second day today to contain the blazes, which witnesses said reached four storeys high and raced across the land like speeding trains, spewing hot embers as far as the horizon. The most serious fires are burning north of the Victorian capital, Melbourne. The army was being deployed to help out and the country's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, announced immediate emergency aid of A$10m (£4.5m). "Hell and its fury have visited the good people of Victoria," said Rudd on a visit to the disaster zone. "The nation grieves with Victoria." "It went through like a bullet," Darren Webb-Johnson, from the small rural town of Kinglake, told Sky TV. "The service station went, the takeaway store across the road went, cylinders [exploded] left, right and centre, and 80% of the town burnt down to the ground." Many of those confirmed dead were trapped in cars trying to flee, while state broadcaster the ABC showed pictures of the small town of Marysville razed. "Marysville, which was one the loveliest townships in Victoria, if not Australia, has just about been wiped out," said Ivor Jones, a pastor whose own home in the town was destroyed. The fires are burning around towns about 50 miles (80km) north of Melbourne, hitting both semi-urban and rural areas. More than 20 people were being treated for serious burns, local officials said. "These fires won't be out for some days," said John Brumby, the premier of Victoria, as he appealed for blood donations for burns victims. "It's about as horrific as it could get," he said. At the town of Wandong, about 30 miles north of Melbourne, one survivor said he had found the body of a friend in the laundry of a burned-out house. Another survivor, 65-year-old Rosaleen Dove, said she had fought successfully for seven hours with her husband to defend her home on Saturday. "We made it. I never thought I could jump fences so quickly," she said. All of the deaths, confirmed and suspected, are believed by police to have been yesterday. Police said 12 were people killed around Kinglake, the worst-affected area so far known. Marie Jones said she was staying at a friend's house in the town when a badly burned man arrived with his infant daughter, saying his wife and other child had been killed. "He was so badly burnt," she told the Melbourne Age website. "He had skin hanging off him everywhere and his little girl was burnt, but not as badly as her dad, and he just came down and he said: 'Look, I've lost my wife, I've lost my other kid, I just need you to save [my daughter]'." Fires were still burning across about 770 sq miles (2,000 sq km) in areas north of Melbourne, with a few towns still under threat, the ABC said on its website. Brumby said 26 fires remained out of control in Victoria. Bushfires are an annual natural event in Australia, but this year a combination of scorching weather, drought and tinder-dry bush has created prime conditions and raised pressure on the government's climate change policy. Australia's previous deadliest bushfires were the so-called Ash Wednesday fires in 1983 when 75 people were killed and more than 3,000 homes destroyed in the southern states of Victoria and South Australia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Seeker Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 It's terrible. And at the same time Europe's drowning in snow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edna Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 I was watching that on TV... I hope our Australians are far from there... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farin Posted February 8, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 'far' is relative... the fires are right outside Melbourne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edna Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 ...I mean, I hope they are fine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Seeker Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 Radhi's not in immediate danger anyway, but it's scary enough Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcM Posted February 8, 2009 Report Share Posted February 8, 2009 As a fellow fire zone dweller, I hope my brethren in Australia get quick relief. I know how you feel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levis Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 You can see the smoke a little further down my train line. And some folks in the outer suburbs woke up to their cars covered in soot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Is your campus out fighting the flames ? Have they called for volunteers ? What's going on right now ,Levis ? Our news coverage is spotty and poor here . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levis Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 One of my uni's campuses has been hit directly because it's in Gippsland which is pretty badly affected. They're calling for blood/cash donations. My own campus is too far to be very affected but there are Melbourne schools and unis too, I guess, that are sending out volunteer firefighters. Me, I'm just refusing to be more than 10km from the city at any given point of time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ombre Vivante Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 As a fellow fire zone dweller, I hope my brethren in Australia get quick relief. I know how you feel. It can get pretty intense, but all those casualties make it catastrophic. Have we ever had anything of that magnitude here in SoCal? How are the evacuation plans over there in Oz that so many died? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farin Posted February 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 just saw in the news that the death toll is above 130 now also, many fires were started by arsonists. the Prime Minister called it "mass murder" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levis Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 I don't hear much about evacuation plans as much as people being advised to leave. But always being told that the decision is theirs to stay and try to wait it out or to escape. But, like the case of Marysville, some people were just caught unprepared. They had no idea the fire was heading their way. Also, initially, a couple of fires were said to have subsided but in fact they were going strong ... or they picked up again. It's windy so they cut across kilometres quickly. And... I learn that gum trees are packed full of oil, so once THEY catch fire, everyone's in trouble - they go kaboom and shoot off embers for tens of kilometres. I've never been in a fire zone before. I'm still not - this is my first experience with these 'bushfire' thingies. I'm more an earthquake person myself Aiyo, mother nature, why you bother me? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ombre Vivante Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 People around here got angry during the last fire because the situation wasn't handled well and... yet our casualties are very low compared to those right now in Australia and back in Louisiana, where scores of people also died due to lack of planning. We have earthquakes and rainstorms here as well. This also leads me think about the improvement of our infrastructure as there has been none, ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levis Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 I'm thinking it might be because of geography - Aussie vegetation appears to be way more flammable than European. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeBB Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 Well, we do get bushfires every summer, but this is the worst, I believe, since white men arrived here a couple of hundred years back. This is the driest inhabited continent on the planet, and we have just had a record-breaking heatwave, and all it takes is one fool with a cigarette butt or one psycho with a match, and the whole place goes up. I'm a thousand km from these current fires, but we all know that smell when there are bushfires about. Here are a couple of pictures I took around Christmas in 2001, which was the last big fire around my place: http://enchantedceiling.com/NZYB649D54 http://enchantedceiling.com/XAEZSDD887 It's a beautiful place, but summer can be brutal. I hope all our friends are alright. LBB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levis Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 yeek!! that's awful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny Posted February 9, 2009 Report Share Posted February 9, 2009 My heart goes out to those people, and I'm glad that Radhi and Lee are OK. Hopefully, you don't have family members that are affected by this tragedy, Lee. I hope Katie, Darryl and their families are OK as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c_s_1987 Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I'm thinking it might be because of geography - Aussie vegetation appears to be way more flammable than European. True. Fires are so common here that rather than having low flammability, our vegetation has adapted to burn quickly but survive the fire and regrow the next season. Good for trees, but not so good for people. The death toll is at least 173 now. I don't have any relatives in the eastern states. My relatives all live in England. New South Wales also has a serious fire problem at the moment, but I don't think anyone has died there yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucky Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I believe katie is in New South Wales, isn't she? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levis Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Btw, Queensland - neighbouring Victoria and NSW - is flooded Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarcM Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 We have not had that kind of loss all at once that I can think of. We are pretty quick to issue evacuation orders when a fire gets anywhere near structures. Most of the time, the deaths that occur are firefighters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ombre Vivante Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 I don't think even the Mt. Helens volcano killed more than half of the people the Australian fires have killed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeBB Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 (edited) I don't think even the Mt. Helens volcano killed more than half of the people the Australian fires have killed. Well, that may be true, but in general this is a pretty disaster-free place to live. We get the odd cyclone up North, bushfires of course, and that's about it. No tsunamis, no big earthquakes and mud-slides, no tornados... Of course, nine of the world's ten most dangerous snakes live here, in my backyard in fact, but that's a different matter ;-) And yes, I believe Katie is here in New South Wales, which is not where the horrible fires have been over the last week. LBB btw, Queensland borders Victoria much like Alaska borders Washington State;-) Edited February 10, 2009 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levis Posted February 10, 2009 Report Share Posted February 10, 2009 Oops... sucky geography. I thought it was just above Victoria. I read somewhere that ten of ten most poisonous snakes live in Oz, btw. Not a good thing to happily inform my family about. Oops, again. It's a wonder they let me go at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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