(AndrewBrownbill/EPA)
A bushfire burns in the Bunyip Forest near the township of Tonimbuk in Victoria
The deadliest bushfires in Australia's history are still raging across the south of the country, leaving hundreds of homes destroyed and towns decimated.
Described as “hell on earth”, Victoria is currently ablaze with 26 fires, including one with a 60-mile firefront. They began yesterday amid record-breaking temperatures and left a trail of death and devastation across the state, burning through 350,000 hectares. 50 fires are also now burning across the border in New South Wales, where temperatures reached 46C today.
The Australian Army has been called in to assist the thousands of weary firefighters who have been battling the blazes over the past 24 hours, and the government has announced a $10 million (£4.5 million) emergency relief fund to help the thousands of Victorians now left homeless. The fires are now officially the worst in Australia's history, surpassing the death toll of the Ash Wednesday fires which claimed 76 lives when they tore through Victoria and South Australia in February, 1983.
Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, toured the worst-affected areas earlier today, offering support to people who had lost everything, and was even a shoulder to cry on for one devastated man.
“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours,” Mr Rudd said. “And many good people now lie dead.”
John Brumby, the emotional Victorian Premier, said it was one of the “darkest days in Victoria’s history” and described the deadly inferno as “hell on earth”.
The death toll – which has been climbing by the hour – now stands at 84. There are fears it will rise as many people are still missing in the worst affected areas. Two children are among the dead and 18 people remain in critical condition in hospital with burns and other life-threatening injuries.
Witnesses said the inferno was like a nuclear bomb and have told of trees "exploding" with the intensity of the heat. They recounted seeing burned-out cars abandoned as their owners scrambled to reach safety.
Strathewen resident Mary Avola escaped the flames but her husband of 43 years, Peter, died after they fled their home in separate cars trying to reach a nearby sporting oval.
"He was behind me in another car. He was behind me for a while and we tried to reach the oval but the gates were locked," Mrs Avola told Melbourne's Herald Sun website. "He just told me to go and that's the last time I saw him." Authorities have since found his body.
Marie Jones, who was visiting Kinglake, where about 12 people perished, told Melbourne’s The Age newspaper that a badly-burnt man had arrived at the property where she was staying with his baby daughter, and told her his wife and other child had been killed.
"He was so badly burnt - his little girl was burnt, but not as badly as her dad, and he just came down and he said 'Look, I've lost my wife, I've lost my other kid, I just need you to save [my daughter]'," Ms Jones told the newspaper.
700 homes have so far been confirmed lost, with 550 in the area of Kinglake and Kinglake west, about 30 miles north-east of Melbourne, where many of the deaths occurred.
David Jarwood, a spokesman for the Victorian Country Fire Association, referred to the Kinglake complex – two major fires that have joined – which is blazing its way through the area north of Melbourne.
“It is now burning its way into quite rugged terrain, heading towards the Alpine National Park, so it will take many days to get it under control,” Mr Jarwood told The Times.
Another fire is threatening Beechworth in Victoria’s north east.
Other fire-affected areas include the regional city of Bendigo, in central Victoria, and the town of Marysville in the Yarra Valley, which has been destroyed with only one building left standing. In Victoria, 14,000 homes are also without power.
Mr Jarwood said many of the deaths occurred when people waited too long to evacuate their homes and were trapped when the fire hit their vehicles. Six people died in an horrific car crash at Kinglake while they tried to outrun the blaze.
As the Prime Minister announced the emergency bushfire relief fund and the support of the Army, other Australian states banded together with Victoria, with the Premiers of South Australia and New South Wales offering to send firefighters and equipment across the border.
Mr Brumby said the Army would be “providing logistics and support”.
“That will tend to be in terms of fuel, logistic support, dozers, some personnel and they will help control what is a very difficult situation,” Mr Brumby said.
Several of the fires are believed to have been deliberately lit, and arsonists are hampering firefighting efforts with some blamed for relighting fires that had already been extinguished.
Yesterday the temperature reached 46.4C – Melbourne’s hottest day on record. However, conditions look set to improve as the level has lowered across most of the state, and the forecast for the next few days is for more mild temperatures in the low 20s.
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