The death toll from Australia’s deadliest bushfires may reach 300, officials said, as police probe whether the blaze in the worst-hit town of Marysville was lit deliberately.
At least 181 people are confirmed dead in the wildfires sweeping through Victoria state and the coroner is prepared for as many as 300 bodies, Police Commissioner Christine Nixon told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“We are going house by house, street by street to search for bodies,” Nixon told the ABC’s Lateline program yesterday. Authorities believe “there are clearly more people who have died in this fire.”
The bushfires destroyed four major towns and dozens of hamlets, razing more than 1,000 houses and leaving 4,200 people homeless, according to the Country Fire Authority. As many as 100 of the 500 residents of Marysville, a town 60 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of the state capital, Melbourne, may have died and authorities view that fire as suspicious, Nixon said.
“The direction it came from, the pace it came with, all of those things are a part of the way we investigate a fire,” Nixon told the ABC. “Part of the concerns about Marysville is that it was just unexplained.”
Road blocks are set up around the town to prevent anyone except authorities from entering. Bodies are still being removed from buildings and being identified, Victorian Premier John Brumby said yesterday.
Record High Temperatures
Two weeks of record high temperatures, that reached 46.4 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) in Melbourne, and hot northerly gales across southeast Australia made conditions over the weekend worse than in February 1983, when 75 people in Victoria and neighboring South Australia died in what are known as the Ash Wednesday fires.
Thirty blazes are still burning across Victoria, with firefighters tackling three major fronts, the CFA said. Milder weather is allowing authorities to build so-called containment lines — bulldozing away scrub and forest — to slow the progress of the fires.
Victorian police believe fires in the Churchill area, southeast of Melbourne, were deliberately lit and the arson squad is investigating another 173 sites, CFA Chief Fire Officer Russell Rees said earlier this week.
Two people are “assisting police” in their inquiries in relation to fires in Yea and Seymour, Victoria Police said in a statement today.
People found guilty of arson can expect to be jailed for 25 years, the same penalty that applies to a murder conviction in Victoria, Brumby said this week.
Memorial Service
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s office said the federal government is planning a memorial service for the bushfire victims. “The whole nation stands with Victoria during this time of national tragedy,” it said in a statement.
The Australian Red Cross said its bushfire appeal has raised A$50 million ($32 million).
More than 450,000 hectares (1.1 million acres) of land has been destroyed, according to the CFA. The total damage of the blazes may be more than A$2 billion, Standard & Poor’s said.
Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand
