MELBOURNE/SYDNEY - Thousands swarmed to
beaches on Australia's east coast on Tuesday to escape fierce
wildfires bearing down on several seaside towns, as the
government readied naval vessels and military helicopters to aid
firefighting and evacuations.
Government officials called for Australian military support
and assistance from U.S. and Canadian fire crews as authorities
confirmed two people had died overnight, taking to 11 the total
deaths in wildfires since the beginning of October.
The huge bushfires have destroyed more than 4 million
hectares (10 million acres), with new blazes sparked into life
almost daily by extremely hot and windy conditions in bushland
left tinder dry after a three-year drought.
Fuelled by searing temperatures and high winds, more than
200 fires are now burning across the southeastern states of New
South Wales and Victoria, threatening several towns and snapping
their power, mobile and internet links.
"This is absolutely one of the worst fire seasons we've
seen," Shane Fitzsimmons, commissioner of the NSW Rural Fire
Service, told a briefing in Sydney.
"It's going to be a very long, difficult dangerous night
still ahead. It's going to be another difficult day again
tomorrow."
Authorities said the main firefront was moving up the coast
and warned those in its path to seek shelter close to the beach.
About 4,000 people in the town of Mallacoota in Victoria
headed to the waterfront after the main road was cut off. Those
who could not make it there scrambled for shelter in a gymnasium
and other public buildings, as emergency sirens wailed.
Some of those trapped in the town posted images of
blood-red, smoke-filled skies on social media. One beachfront
photograph showed people lying shoulder-to-shoulder on the sand,
some wearing gas masks.
It looked "a lot like Armageddon," said David Jeffrey, the
owner of the Wave Oasis guesthouse, adding, "It's terrifying."
Fisherman Steve Casement said he had lost his house in
Mallacoota to the fires.
"We are stuck here now," he told Reuters by telephone.
"Everyone is pretty shocked at the moment, most of my mates are
in the same position.
"Right now, I am on a trailer watching the town burn down,
listening to gas bottles explode at some poor bugger's home and
seeing smoke all around me."
Authorities said that by late afternoon the worst danger had
passed.
DARKNESS IN THE AFTERNOON
Several hundreds of kilometres north, the Jervis Bay tourist
spot famed for having the whitest sand beach in the world, was
shrouded in darkness in the afternoon as massive fires burned,
with conditions expected to worsen.
The blazes were also generating their own weather patterns,
with erratic winds, dry lightning and a significantly faster
spread in different direction, fire authorities said.
Ellie Morello took refuge at a beachside motel with her
mother, some neighbours, friends at pets as fires approached
Batemans Bay, a town on the New South Wales coast.
"My throat's hurting from the smoke," she told Reuters by
telephone. "Burnt leaves and sparks were falling on me like
rain."
Another small fire was closing in behind her as she spoke,
she added.
"Helicopters are flying right overhead and dropping ocean
waters a couple of hundred metres from where I am. But we have
nowhere to go so we are still here."
Morello and others said they had run out of food and were
unable to replenish supplies as shops had shut.
James Findlay, a Melbourne-based broadcaster, said his
parents' home in the town was gutted after palm trees on the
lawn caught fire. The couple were vacationing in New Zealand.
"There were a lot of family heirlooms in there," he told
Reuters. "A lot of priceless memories."
The fires have been spread across four states, with fronts
stretching hundreds of kilometres in some cases, affecting many
towns and rural areas.
The two people who died overnight were believed to have been
a father and son protecting their property near the town of
Cobargo in New South Wales, police said, with a third missing,
feared dead, while in Victoria, four more were unaccounted for.
Bushfires burned on the outskirts of Sydney, cloaking the
harbour city in smoke ahead of a fireworks display planned for
New Year's Eve.
Authorities said the fireworks would go ahead, despite some
public calls for cancellation in solidarity with fire-hit areas
in the state.
"Many of us have mixed feelings about this evening, but the
important thing we take out of this is that we're a resilient
state," NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters.