Australia sending aid to wildfire towns as death toll rises

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By TRISTAN LAVALETTE

PERTH, Australia (AP) — Australia deployed military ships and aircraft Wednesday to help communities ravaged by apocalyptic wildfires that have left at least 17 people dead nationwide and sent thousands of residents and holidaymakers fleeing to the shoreline.

Navy ships and military aircraft were bringing water, food and fuel to towns where supplies were depleted and roads were cut off by the fires. Authorities confirmed three bodies were found Wednesday at Lake Conjola on the south coast of New South Wales, bringing the death toll in the state to 15.

More than 175 homes have been destroyed in the region.

Some 4,000 people in the coastal town of Mallacoota fled to the shore as winds pushed a fire toward their homes under a sky darkened by smoke and turned blood-red by flames. Stranded residents and vacationers slept in their cars, and gas stations and surf clubs transformed into evacuation areas. Dozens of homes burned before winds changed direction late Tuesday, sparing the rest of the town.



This Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2019, photo provided by Twitter user @AvaTheHuman shows red sky from wildfires burning, in Victoria, Australia. On Tuesday morning, 4,000 people in the coastal town of Mallacoota fled to the shore as winds pushed a fire toward their homes under a sky darkened by smoke and turned blood-red by flames. (@AvaTheHuman via AP)


Read more: https://apnews.com/43d9c5f8857e18d42d61853ac20d1cd0

[rickyhall]

1. A real bummer. I really like Aussies, but especially koalas.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

2. A first hand account of this event with video.....

from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

What it was like as the Mallacoota bushfire moved towards us on the foreshore
By Gus Goswell

Link: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-01/mallacoota-bushfire-first-hand-account/11836264

(includes a very eerie video taken near the shoreline)

(snips)

Gus Goswell has travelled to Mallacoota for holidays for years. He is trapped in the town with thousands of holidaymakers by a huge bushfire which burned through the town on New Year's Eve. This is his account of his terrifying ordeal.

We had been so anxious for the dawn to arrive, but when it finally did arrive, the dawn brought us no comfort, only new fear and danger. The long, mostly sleepless, night huddled together on the ground next to the Mallacoota foreshore had been uncomfortable, but what the dawn brought to the thousands of us trapped by fire was terrifying.

I surely know who's in charge here........


Photo: The fire in Mallacoota destroyed everything in its path.

As calmly as possible, we talked as a family about our plan for getting in the water, who would hold our daughter, who would have the dog, the shallowest paths across the water that would take us as far from the fire as possible, the importance of only getting into the water when we really had to. And we waited for that moment.

But somehow — for us at least — that moment which must be a moment of pure terror never arrived. Thanks to the skill and bravery of the firefighters and what I have since read was a minor wind change, the flames never reached us.

Later in the day, thousands of us watched, horrified, as the fire destroyed houses on the other side of the lake, as flames crowned and trees exploded as the fire raced on.

Read more on the bushfires here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/

Horrifying event for anyone to live through, although the memories of this trauma for children will stay with them for all their lives.

Let's all wish our Aussie friends well and perhaps help out through the Australian Red Cross or other chartiy....

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Where is international aid? One would think the US would offer

assistance.

[bdamomma]

4. oh come on

not with this bastard we have now who only thinks about himself. He didn't give a crap about Puerto Rico. He's a vile cretin.

[EndlessWire]

5. I agree. n/t

[bdamomma]

6. Are these fires

a result of climate change??? So sad.