Australia battles wildfires
Güncelleme Tarihi:
AFP
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Şubat 11, 2009 00:00
HEALESVILLE, Australia - Firefighters battled yesterday to save Australian communities threatened by searing wildfires that have already claimed 181 lives, a toll that is expected to rise. As tales of the horror wrought by the infernos that have razed whole towns transfixed Australia, officials said the danger was far from over and the final death toll would pass 200.
"This was truly an inland tsunami," Russell Hildebrandt, a chaplain at the Healesville relief centre, told AFP. "It's just come in, swept through everything in its path and killed hundreds of people who were caught completely unawares." Victoria State Premier John Brumby said more than 50 people were believed by the coroner to be "already deceased but not yet identified", and the final toll from Australia's deadliest bushfires would "exceed 200 deaths."
Exhausted firefighters, most of them volunteers who have had little rest since the firestorms flared in Victoria on Saturday, were fighting to halt the advance of the flames bearing down on rural towns and villages.
’Heavy ember attack’
Cool winds helped avert another disaster as the fires skirted around the town in the heart of the winemaking Yarra Valley region, but firefighters said hot weather would return later in the week. Victoria's Country Fire Authority had warned the town was in danger from "heavy ember attack," a phenomenon that survivors who have faced it liken to a fiery hailstorm of burning embers.
Further east in Gippsland, firefighters were trying to control a massive blaze stretching more than 100 kilometers. Investigators began the country's largest ever arson probe as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd vowed to track down anyone believed responsible.
Exhausted firefighters, most of them volunteers who have had little rest since the firestorms flared in Victoria on Saturday, were fighting to halt the advance of the flames bearing down on rural towns and villages.
’Heavy ember attack’
Cool winds helped avert another disaster as the fires skirted around the town in the heart of the winemaking Yarra Valley region, but firefighters said hot weather would return later in the week. Victoria's Country Fire Authority had warned the town was in danger from "heavy ember attack," a phenomenon that survivors who have faced it liken to a fiery hailstorm of burning embers.
Further east in Gippsland, firefighters were trying to control a massive blaze stretching more than 100 kilometers. Investigators began the country's largest ever arson probe as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd vowed to track down anyone believed responsible.