Relief supplies yesterday began reaching thousands of people stranded in fire-ravaged Australian towns after deadly bushfires ripped through popular tourist spots and rural areas leaving at least eight people dead.
Navy ships and military aircraft were deployed alongside emergency crews to provide humanitarian relief and assess the damage from the deadliest spate of blazes yet in a months-long bushfire crisis.
Police said that three more bodies were discovered yesterday, bringing the confirmed death toll since late on Monday to eight, including a volunteer firefighter who died when a “fire tornado” flipped his 10-tonne truck.
Photo: AFP
The deaths take to at least 17 the number of people killed in one of Australia’s most devastating bushfire seasons of the past few years.
There were mounting fears for several others missing after the country’s southeast was devastated by out-of-control blazes, which destroyed more than 200 homes and left some small towns in ruins.
The fires encircled seaside communities to trap thousands of holidaymakers and locals, cutting electricity and communication services that in many areas remained down yesterday.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said that emergency services faced a “real challenge” accessing isolated areas to help injured people, at least three of whom were later airlifted out suffering burns.
Some of the stranded took advantage of temporary road reopenings to return home, while others faced a second trying night of bedding down in make-shift accommodation.
In the coastal town of Eden, where evacuees were camping at soccer fields, volunteer Loureen Kelly said that food was “running low very quickly” amid panic buying.
“Basic things like bread, we ran out of yesterday. We had milk and very low-to-no fruit in town,” she told Australian Broadcasting Corp, adding that the community had rallied to provide food to the evacuees.
In Mallacoota, where 4,000 had huddled on the beach as fire swept through, authorities were preparing for the possibility that the town could be cut off for weeks.
Aircraft have begun dropping supplies and ships carrying two weeks’ worth of supplies arrived yesterday.
Cooler temperatures and easing winds yesterday provided a window of opportunity for relief efforts, but there were concerns over new fires sparked by lightning in alpine regions.
“There’s a lot of people holidaying, again, up in those areas,” Victoria Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said. “We’ll be prioritizing those [fires] and hitting them as hard as we can. We don’t need any new fires.”
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