Fires kill 93 in Australia
By Mick Tsikas WANDONG, Australia (Reuters) – Australia’s deadliest bushfire has killed at least 93 people, some as they fled in cars or as they huddled in houses when the inferno engulfed rural towns in the country’s southeast. The fire storm tore through several small towns north of Melbourne on Saturday night destroying everything in its path. One family was forced to dive into a farm reservoir to survive while others took refuge in a community shed with firefighters standing between them and a wall of flames. A badly burned man in the town of Kinglake, where there were many fatalities, was kept alive for six hours by being partially submerged by friends in a pool until help arrived. "It rained fire," said one survivor, showing his singed shirt. "We hid in the olive grove and watched our house burn." … "We will find more bodies as we gain access to different parts of the fire areas," Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon told a news conference. "We have found people in cars, it looks like they have decided late to leave their premises. We have found people who have been in properties, in their paddocks. We’ve found others in their houses. And the sad part is that we found children." … Wildfires are a natural annual event in Australia, but this year a combination of scorching weather, drought and tinder-dry bush has created prime conditions for blazes to take hold. Green lawmakers have been urging stiffer climate-change policies to reduce the risk of more such summer disasters.
