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australia is on fire and flooded
while most of you in the northern hemisphere are freezing your ass's off, here's whats been happening in australia
Our darkest day
VICTORIA has witnessed this country's greatest natural disaster. Worse than Black Friday. Worse than Ash Wednesday.
That is the grim sum of a catastrophe that already exceeds all previous Australian natural disasters — and which threatens to grow worse.
The towns of Kinglake and Marysville have been wiped out and around the state more people have died than in any previous natural catastrophe — one so lethal that authorities are treating it like a major terrorist attack.
The first of several interstate victim identification teams arrived yesterday to assist Victoria Police and coronial staff under a terrorist contingency plan framed in response to the September 11 terror attacks of 2001.
More than 70 people died in the Black Friday fires of 1939 — and 75 on Ash Wednesday in 1983, 47 of them Victorians. But as the official death list topped 84 last night, senior police sources told The Age they feared the final figure would be much greater.
There are so many bodies scattered in fire zones around the state that it could take police days to find and retrieve them all.
Bodies in burned-out cars will have to be removed so that roads can be opened to the public; gutted buildings can be combed for remains of the missing.
Victoria's morgue was full last night — with hospitals and universities being asked to store bodies until formal identifications could be made. Some of the scores of injured people in hospital were not expected to survive.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday promised help from the army, which has sent heavy earthmoving equipment to cut fire breaks near Yea and has sent bedding to Warragul.
"Hell and all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria … many good people now lie dead," Mr Rudd said. "Many others lie injured."
Premier John Brumby launched a bushfire appeal fund in partnership with the Federal Government and the Red Cross.
He said the weather conditions that spawned 400 fires across the state were "much worse" than those that produced Ash Wednesday or Black Friday: "It's just a day, I hope in my lifetime, (that) is never repeated."
Three schools have been destroyed by the bushfires and dozens more will be closed today. Students and staff at Strathewen Primary School, near Kinglake, Middle Kinglake Primary and Marysville Primary School have sought counselling after thee schools were razed over the weekend
Worst hit was the once-pretty alpine town of Marysville, reduced to a tangled mess of smoking rubble and twisted iron.
Most residents were evacuated to nearby Alexandra — itself under threat from fire last night. But some of those who left too late or stayed to fight the fire lost their lives.
The fire that began at the old Murrindindi sawmill near Yea earlier on Saturday raced across the Black Spur and destroyed the hamlet of Narbethong and then Marysville, house by house, street by street.
In an hour, Marysville was no more. Every public building including the police station, post office, telephone exchange and much-loved guest houses and a hotel, had been destroyed.
Worse was that some of the gutted cars and buildings had dead bodies in them. Names of the dead and missing were not available last night but the few locals who stayed and survived talked numbly yesterday of one firefighter's family being killed, of an age pensioner dying at home and of several cars being found with human remains in them. They hoped the toll was as few as five — but it could be much higher, they said.
Third-generation local Leigh Jowett saved the old house in which he had grown up — then helped his neighbours save theirs. "There might only be 15 or 20 houses left in Marysville," Mr Jowett said. "There's only three left in Falls Road — and the whole main street is gone apart from one motel."
Although the worst might be over, the danger is not past. The Bureau of Meteorology has predicted dangerous conditions for much of the week, warning of further lightning strikes and strong winds. Fire danger would still be "very high" from midday to 6pm on most days.
- THE death toll from Victoria's devastating bushfires climbed to 84 last night and is expected to rise as emergency services finally gain access to many razed areas
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tonight as i watched the sun set i saw the whole sky was red from the smoke from the fires
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while all these fires are happening, up in the northern parts of australia we have major flooding
Floods force mass evacuations
Emergency accommodation centres have opened in north Queensland as floodwaters, which have isolated towns and shut schools, continue to rise in the aftermath of former tropical cyclone Ellie.
Ingham residents endured torrential rainfall as Ellie crossed the coast at Mission Beach, south of Cairns, yesterday.
Water police and members of the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service aboard a swift water rescue boat are also attempting to save the caretaker of a property at McCrossin park, 80 kilometres west of Townsville, where the man was found stranded on top of his ute this morning.
Authorities are bracing for worsening conditions, with torrential rainfall set to continue today as the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Ellie move south.
The deluge cut off the Bruce Highway both north and south of Ingham, were 100 millimetres of rain has fallen in the past 24 hours.
Hinchinbrook Shire Council spokesman Dan Hoban said Ingham's main street disappeared beneath flood waters about midday yesterday as Palm Creek, a main tributary of the Herbert River, reached its peak of 12.2 metres.
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Originally Posted by keiko
fucking hell, when will it stop! 
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