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The media has an eye for a good headline. Sunday's Courier Mail screamed HELL ON EARTH.
And that was before it got worse. I rarely even see the news & even more rarely find it interesting enough to comment on but while the north of my state is under water, with more rain to come, the southern states are battling the worst fires ever in a land used to dealing with raging fires.
Thirty~one fires are burning across N.S.W & Vistoria & 25 of those are out of control. That's hundreds of hectares of land charred to a crisp; 750 homes up in smoke; 93 confirmed dead. The death toll will rise.
The satellite pictures are amazing. The bottom eastern corner of Australia is obscured by a huge billowing plume of smoke!The temperatures, which have been over 100F, & the winds have created havoc with the fires coming through so hard & fast people have been unable to escape.
There's nothing quite like a raging Australian bushfire. The high oil content in eculypt leaves means trees will spontaneously explode into flame with fire racing through the tree tops as well as along the ground. It's bad enough that fire crews from other states are going in ~ & they aren't trying to put these out either, merely contain them & let them burn themselves out. Not much they can do. The fires are coming through as a solid wall of flame.
The most horrible part of all this, the thing that just confounds me completely, is that not only were many of these fires deliberately lit, while the fire crews were frantically trying to contain the damage & save lives someone was going around relighting fires & starting new ones! Some people just boggle my mind.
What I do know is I won't be watching the news as the horror stories start coming through because that's the stuff nightmares are made of but spare a prayer for those left homeless or orphaned, parents who lost children in the blaze & especially for those where whole communities have been burnt out & many died in the blaze. All the Governmental handouts in the world is not going to fix this one in a hurry.
7 comments:
Hi Ganeida,
We're praying for the people of bushfire ravaged Victoria. To lose a home and car would be bad enough, but to lose family or friends as well would be devastating, but to top that all off, the people of Marysville would have lost employment, too. :(
We have been following this horrendous news. Sienna imediately thought of you guys. I am glad that you are all safe and we are so sad for the many who have lost lives or loved ones in this tragedy. The arsonists are unbelievable! We will keep you in our prayers,,, Ash
It's so hard to imagine the devastation but also the insanity of someone deliberately re-lighting fires! The pictures I ma seeing are awful. I'm glad you and yours are safe!
Connie
Ash & Constance: we are a long, long way from the fires with a completely different weather pattern so are perfectly safe but the death toll is now at 173 & still climbing. This is our worst natural disaster in memory. The arsonists will be charged with murder by the looks & those towns completely wiped out are now crime scenes. We've had a lot of practise at dealing with disasters but people are still raw & hurting plus the sheer scale of the disaster & the fact we're not done yet as the fires are still raging is creating more problems. It is a risk if you live in these sort of places because of the oil content in the trees. It was very high this year.
Wow. I've heard blips here and there, but I'm not a real "news" person myself. The whole thing is unbelievable. Lord bless those less fortunate.
I've followed this on the news. I don't have the words to convey my sorrow for everyone affected by this.
I'm awful for not following the news properly, but I've gone and looked some of this up... horrible. Tragic. Heartbreaking. None of the words really work - I don't think there are any that do.....
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