Vic: 128 dead as fires continue to ravage Victoria
09 Feb 2009 2:19 PM
MELBOURNE, Feb 9 AAP - The death toll from Victoria's bushfires could top 200 as authorities sift through the piles of ash that were once entire communities.
The official toll rose to 128 on Monday.
More than 70 of those people died in the Kinglake fire, which has burnt through 220,000 hectares of the central highlands.
Senior fire and parks officials have told staff they fear there may be more than 200 deaths when the heartbreaking task of cleaning up is complete.
The fires are already Australia's worst natural disaster by far: worse than Ash Wednesday, Black Friday, Cyclone Tracy and even the Bali bombings.
Country Fire Authority (CFA) volunteers are struggling to cope emotionally.
There are so many bodies. Many don't even look like bodies and will require the attentions of specialised police Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) teams.
DVI coordinator Inspector Greg Hough said the identification process would take a long time as fatalities had occurred across the state.
He called on families to do what they could to help identify loved ones but conceded that in many cases "it will be done forensically".
More than 750 houses have been destroyed and 330,000 hectares have been burnt.
There are 31 fires still raging throughout Victoria after record heat and wild winds set the state ablaze on Saturday.
The biggest current threat is in Beechworth, in the state's north, where a blaze is burning out of control, while the Churchill fires in Gippsland are also threatening homes.
The Beechworth blaze has burnt 30,000 hectares and continues to threaten the communities of Stanley, Bruarong, Dederang, Gundowring, Gundowring Upper, Kancoona, Kancoona South, Coral Bank, Glenn Creek and Running Creek.
The fire has skirted Beechworth and is heading towards Yackandandah.
"There are seven or eight small settlements in the path of this fire and those residents have been urged to get their fire plans under way," Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) spokesman Geoff Russell said.
All fire-devastated areas will be treated as crime scenes to determine if arson was involved, Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said.
An emotional Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said deliberately lit fires amounted to "mass murder".
"What do you say about anyone like that? There are no words to describe it other than mass murder.
"This is of a level of horror that few of us anticipated."
A doctor treating burns victims at The Alfred hospital in Melbourne said the scale of the disaster was worse than the Bali bombings, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.
Twenty serious burns patients have been admitted to The Alfred in 24 hours, all with burns to more than 30 per cent of their bodies.
"This is by far the worst disaster I've ever been involved with," Dr De Villiers Smit told reporters.
Emergency relief operations are underway throughout the state including a massive exercise at Whittlesea, which is serving survivors from Kinglake and its surrounds.
At least 20 people have been killed in Kinglake and nine in Kinglake West with dozens more fatalities in nearby communities, while at least 550 homes have been razed.
As refugees flooded down the mountain from Kinglake and surrounding townships into Whittlesea, 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.
The Kinglake fire has cut a vast swathe across the central highlands from Wandong, south to Kinglake and nearby St Andrews, and northeast towards the upper Goulburn Valley.
The township of Marysville has been almost entirely destroyed.
One fire official said the blaze had a perimeter extending "hundreds of kilometres" and may take weeks to contain.
The Churchill fires have so far burnt an estimated 32,000 hectares, a CFA spokeswoman said.
Residents of the Glenhope area in central Victoria have also been warned a section of the Redesdale fire has flared up and could affect their town.
The death toll surpasses that from the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, in which 75 people died in Victoria and South Australia, and the Black Friday bushfires of 1939, which killed 71.
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II has expressed shock at the loss of life and devastation.
"I was shocked and saddened to learn of the terrible toll being exacted by the fires this weekend," Her Majesty 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."
Former Nine Network Melbourne newsreader Brian Naylor, 78, and his wife Moiree were among the people who died at tiny Kinglake West as the flames swept in on Saturday.
Ninety-two firefighters from Tasmania will arrive to help the firefighting effort on Monday, in addition to the 150 NSW firefighters currently helping fight the Beechworth fires.
