Destroyed buildings and vehicles are all that's left at Kinglake, northeast of Melbourne, Australia. part of Queensland have been cut off by heavy rain and have been declared natural disaster zones.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – The death toll from Australia's worst fire disaster in a quarter-century reached 230 o
n Sunday as towering flames razed entire towns in south-eastern Australia and burned fleeing residents in their cars.
At least 700 homes were destroyed in Saturday's inferno when searing temperatures and wind blasts produced a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country's Victoria state, where all the deaths occurred.
“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters Sunday as he toured the fire zone.
Police said they b
elieved the deaths included groups of people whose charred bodies were found in cars – suggesting families or groups of friends were engulfed in flames as they tried to flee. One official said an entire town had been razed save for one building, though no deaths were reported there.
Police said they were still trying to confirm details of the deaths, with officers’ movements hampered by still-dangerous conditions in the disaster zone.
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 the “Ash Wednesday” fires of 1983, when raging flames killed 75 people and r
azed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia.
Meanwhile in Queensland in the northeast of the country, where some towns have been inundated for a week by cyclonic rains, two people were missing after their car was swept away and a crocodile is believed to have taken a boy.
"The boy was walking with his seven-year-old brother earlier this morning when he followed his dog into flood waters," police said in a statement.
"He disappeared in the water and his brother saw a large crocodile in the vicinity of his disappearance."
Much of the state has been declared a disaster zone, with an area of more than a million square kilometres and 3,000 homes affected by floods.
Source: Telegraph U.K., BBC
n Sunday as towering flames razed entire towns in south-eastern Australia and burned fleeing residents in their cars.At least 700 homes were destroyed in Saturday's inferno when searing temperatures and wind blasts produced a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country's Victoria state, where all the deaths occurred.
“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters Sunday as he toured the fire zone.
Police said they b
elieved the deaths included groups of people whose charred bodies were found in cars – suggesting families or groups of friends were engulfed in flames as they tried to flee. One official said an entire town had been razed save for one building, though no deaths were reported there.Police said they were still trying to confirm details of the deaths, with officers’ movements hampered by still-dangerous conditions in the disaster zone.
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 the “Ash Wednesday” fires of 1983, when raging flames killed 75 people and r
azed more than 3,000 homes in Victoria and South Australia.Meanwhile in Queensland in the northeast of the country, where some towns have been inundated for a week by cyclonic rains, two people were missing after their car was swept away and a crocodile is believed to have taken a boy.
"The boy was walking with his seven-year-old brother earlier this morning when he followed his dog into flood waters," police said in a statement.
"He disappeared in the water and his brother saw a large crocodile in the vicinity of his disappearance."
Much of the state has been declared a disaster zone, with an area of more than a million square kilometres and 3,000 homes affected by floods.
Source: Telegraph U.K., BBC
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