Australia through Flood and Fire
It seems to be the worst all round for Australia with much of rural Queensland still under water (around the size of South Australia) and the body count has risen to 36 [Updates on the fatality count are at the bottom of this article] from the Victorian bushfires. With global economic downturns to deal with, as well as droughts and floods, it’s almost like the year has already stacked up a formidable barrier.
A hat tip for a minute for those who died in the fires, many of who crashed on the highway trying to escape the firestorm, and to the 5 year old boy today who was taken by a crocodile in the floods.
One thing that rises my thermometer is the reference to these fires as natural disasters when our real threat, as happened here, are firebugs waiting for that perfect day of high 40′s heat and 100+ kilometre per hour winds. Hardly a natural disaster.
So if you’ve got a minute to sit quietly and think of all the lives lost in the last 24 hours. To put it in perspective of locality to a major city, I’m led to believe the fire has reached around 60 miles from Melbourne. Entire towns have been overrun by the engulfing fireball that hit like a freight train in the night.
Update: 8 February, 1900 hrs
Death toll from the Victorian fires has now reached 65 with an expectation for significantly more bodies to be discovered in the debris of the over 700 homes lost as well as in cars on the highways. Another 8 people are so critically burnt they are expected to be added to the death toll as well.
Update: 8 February, 1915 hrs
Death toll from the Victorian fires moves to 66 after another body confirmed in Marysville.
Update: 8 February, 2030 hrs
Death toll from the Victorian fires jumps up to 76 fatalities with 29 of those at the tiny town of Kinglake. Meanwhile the flood news from Ingham…
Update: 8 February, 2150 hrs
Death toll from the Victorian fires has reached a staggering 84 fatalities and rising. The number will rise quite a lot further as police get further into the burnt out towns.
Update: 9 February, 0700 hrs
Death toll from the Victorian fires moves to 108 overnight.
Update: 11 February, 0810 hrs
Death toll from the Victorian fires is sitting at 181 while forensic investigators look for more bodies and hunt the arsonists responsible.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
This is truly terrible news, I hope the fires can be brought under some sort of control as soon as possible and that there are no more deaths (thoughts for those who have lost lives because of this).
On a sombre note: I sadly wasn’t too surprised to see this happening because Australia’s hottest months are when we are having our coldest – and the bulk of the UK has just witnessed it’s heaviest snowfall in 20 years. So, it’s logical to expect that if things are more extreme than usual here, that they could (and have been) more extreme than usual over in Australia too. Unfortunately, this is a meteorological trend that is only set to continue for the coming years ahead. The UK needs to become better prepared for snow conditions, and Australia needs to brace itself for more floods and fires (I’m aware how well-prepared you guys already are for combating bushfires – probably the best in the World).
Terrible about the recent deathtoll, really tragic stuff.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:39 pm
True, Matt. The Kinglake experience was simply no warning, it was a firestorm that razed the town and several others along with it. Kinglake was also the convergence of two fire fronts into one, as well.
The shitty thing about it is arsonists lit a number of these contributing fires, as usual, and there are reports that even after SES put areas out the arsonists returned and relit them.
Which is the real tragedy. And to some extent it happens every year.
But it has also been long discussed that Victoria and parts of New South Wales are particularly vulnerable to this devastation.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
We had a similarly fierce fire experience in Tasmania back in the 60′s south of hobart which reached into our southern suburbs with a large loss of life. You just need those perfect conditions with the hot air and strong winds behind it and it’s time to just get out of the way.