Death toll expected to top 200
LATEST: Towns have been declared crime scenes and the death toll in Victoria’s bushfires could top 200 as the grisly search for bodies continues.
By this morning, the toll had reached 166 but that figure was certain to climb as identification experts were called in to take over from volunteer firefighters with the grim task of recovering bodies.
Senior fire and parks officials have told staff they fear the toll will double.
More than 700 homes have been destroyed, 330,000 hectares have been burnt out and more than 52 fires were listed as still burning throughout the state on Monday.
It was impossible to tell how many people were missing, authorities said, while one insurance company said the fires could cost half a billion dollars.
The Kinglake area remains the worst hit by a fierce 220,000 hectare firestorm which ripped through the region on Saturday, killing 103 people so far and destroying over 550 homes.
At least 33 residents from the township of Kinglake alone have been killed, and a further nine from Kinglake West, with more expected.
The once idyllic communities of Kinglake, Strathewen and Marysville are little more than collections of ash and charcoal, with a few burnt-out house frames standing limply amid charred corrugated iron.
The toll reached seven in tiny Strathewen where only three of the mountain hamlet’s 40 houses were still standing.
Nearby Marysville was annihilated and is one town to be declared a crime scene as police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon confirmed some fires were deliberately lit.
Ms Nixon said a task force would be set up on Tuesday to investigate arson.
An emotional Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the firebugs responsible were nothing short of mass murderers.
“What do you say about anyone like that? There are no words to describe it other than mass murder,” Mr Rudd said.
“This is of a level of horror that few of us anticipated.”
The Churchill fire in Gippsland, which police confirm was deliberately lit, had killed at least 19 people by 6pm on Monday, including nine in Callignee.
The 35,000 hectare blaze broke through containment lines earlier in the day and hit the town of Churchill, which is also a crime scene, and was threatening nearby Yarram.
In the north of the state, fire around Dederang escalated significantly late on Monday afternoon, also threatening the towns of Beechworth and Yackandandah.
The fire was spotting ahead of the main fire and ash and embers were threatening communities in Gundowring, Gundowring Upper, Glen Creek, Kergunyah South, Mudgeegonga and Running Creek.
Country Fire Authority (CFA) volunteers have been traumatised by many of their gruesome discoveries and the job of searching for bodies has been taken over by specialised police Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams.
Burnt-out cars which became tombs lined bush roads in the central highlands and volunteers were recovering the charred remains of friends and colleagues.
As more horrifying stories unfolded today, three sisters were waiting near a roadblock outside Healesville when they were told their parents and disabled brother were killed.
Two of the sisters’ husbands had gone through the roadblock in a desperate search for Faye and Bill Walker and their wheelchair-bound son, Geoffrey, 53, at their home in the nearby village of Narbethong.
The husbands found their bodies inside the house, with their car parked outside, packed and ready to go with the key in its ignition and family dog in the back.
The three daughters Marilyn, Julie and Vivian, were inconsolable as they cried and hugged each other at the roadblock when their partners returned with the news.
Twenty serious burns patients have been admitted to The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne in 24 hours, all with burns to more than 30 percent of their bodies.
The Alfred’s Dr De Villiers Smit told reporters the scale of the disaster is worse than the Bali bombings.
“This is by far the worst disaster I’ve ever been involved with,” he said.
Huge emergency relief operations are under way throughout the state, with a massive exercise at Whittlesea which is serving survivors from Kinglake and its environs.
As refugees flooded down the mountain from Kinglake and surrounding townships into Whittlesea, emergency relief workers headed the other way, taking desperately needed food, water and fuel supplies to those who have remained behind.
“That’s the second phase of the operation. First it’s been making the area safe for firefighters to work in but also getting supplies and resources to people on the mountain who decided to stay and protect their properties,” CFA spokesman Dave Wolf told AAP.
Tent cities have been set up in areas such as nearby Yea, while caravans, community halls and strangers’ houses have become homes to thousands of newly homeless Victorians.
The Queen expressed her shock at the devastating bushfires in a message to Australia.
“I was shocked and saddened to learn of the terrible toll being exacted by the fires this weekend,” the Queen said in a statement.
“I send my heartfelt condolences to the families of all those who have died and my deep sympathy to the many that have lost their homes in this disaster.”
- AAP
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4842656a12.html
NOT MUCH I CAN REALLY SAY APART THAN MY THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOU.
below is from my Aunt in Bendigo
Thanks John for your concern, yes we are fine, the fires were 2 blocks away,
lots of smells of burning, black smoke etc. the Police came into our Court &
advised us to leave, we packed the boot of the car with important papers etc
& then manned the garden hoses; fortunately the wind turned away to the east
& we were safe. Sadly the stories of other families are devastating, the
country is in shock, many lit by fire bugs whom our P M has labeled, with
great emotion, as mass murderers & I reckon it would be impossible to find
anyone to disagree with him. After a review the following day of what I
chose to put in the car I realized I had forgotten the mobile phone
charger!! The computer tower would be a sensible inclusion. I hope I never
have to do that again.
