KINGLAKE, Australia: At least 108 people were killed and entire towns reduced to ashes in the worst wildfire disaster in Australian history, described by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday as “hell in all its fury.”
People died in their cars as they attempted to escape the inferno while others were burned to death in their homes.
While the deadly fires and a heat wave raged in southeast Australia, floods from torrential rains claimed lives in the north, with one victim, a five-year-old boy, feared snatched by a crocodile as he walked his dog.
The death toll from the fires jumped from 84 to 108 early today, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) said, quoting police.
But there were fears it could rise yet as medics treated badly burned survivors and emergency crews made it through to more than 700 houses destroyed by the fires, some of which have been blamed on arsonists.
Thousands of survivors jammed community halls, schools and other makeshift accommodation as troops and firefighters battled to control huge blazes fed by tinder-dry conditions after a once-in-a-century heat wave. The devastating fires have affected around 3,000 sq km — an area larger than Luxembourg.
“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours. Many good people lie dead, many injured,” Rudd told reporters, deploying army units to help 3,000 firefighters battling the flames.
The number of dead rose steadily throughout yesterday as rescue crews reached townships that bore the brunt of the most intense firestorm northwest of Melbourne, which survivors likened to a nuclear bomb.
The previous highest death toll in Australian wildfires was 75 people killed in Victoria and neighboring South Australia in 1983 on what became known as Ash Wednesday.
The latest fires in Australia’s southeast flared Saturday, fanned by high winds after a heat wave sent temperatures soaring to 46 C, and continued to burn out of control yesterday. They wiped out the pretty resort village of Marysville and largely destroyed the town of Kinglake, north of Melbourne, with houses, shops, petrol stations and schools razed to the ground.
Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said there was no doubt that arsonists were behind some of the fires. “Some of these fires have started in localities that could only be by hand, it could not be natural causes,” he said. Police have warned that arsonists could face murder charges.
