Our darkest day
http://www.theage.com.au/national/our-d ... ml?page=-1VICTORIA 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 others — 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 under a national terrorist contingency plan.
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 93 last night, senior police sources told The Age they feared the final figure would be much greater.
So many bodies are scattered in fire zones around the state that it could take days to find and retrieve them all.
The names of those killed are only just starting to emerge. Among them were former Channel Nine newsreader Brian Naylor and his wife Moiree, at Kinglake West.
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 many injured people in hospital were not expected to survive.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday promised help from the army, which has sent bedding to Warragul and heavy equipment to cut fire breaks near Yea.
"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, and he hoped never to see it again.
Schools at Strathewen, Kinglake and Marysville have been destroyed and dozens more will be closed today.
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 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 bodies in them. The few locals who stayed and survived talked numbly yesterday of one firefighter's family being killed, of a pensioner dying at home and of several cars with human remains in them.
Local builder 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."
Former Marysville resident Graham Haycraft was distressed to hear his old family home had been destroyed but counts himself lucky to have moved out.
"Marysville missed out in 1939 and on Ash Wednesday, but not this time," he said last night. "My heart goes out to people who are part of my life." He expects to return for funerals.
There were similar scenes and stories at Kinglake, at Churchill in West Gippsland and at Bendigo.
Stories of offhand heroism emerged yesterday. Reluctant teenage hero Rhys Sund declined to be photographed after driving a tiny tractor and trailer across country behind the fire front at Chum Creek, near Healesville, to save his sister Rhiannon and a group of frightened women and children from an isolated farmhouse.
"I'm so proud of the young bloke," Rhys's father Mark Sund said yesterday. "He cut down the fences in his way and went in.
"Rhys hasn't been to bed yet. He's been fighting the fire all night."
Channel Seven reporter Norm Beaman last night was celebrating his wife Annie's escape from the Kilmore East fire while he was stopped at a police road block several kilometres from their isolated Mount Disappointment property. Beaman praised the bravery of a local policeman, Peter Gough, who drove a police sedan through burning bush to the farm while Beaman was forced to stay at the roadblock after returning from Melbourne to tackle the fire.
"Annie put up an incredible fight by herself," he said. "She wet down the house and garden with fire pumps then when the shearing shed and machinery shed exploded she left. She told me on the mobile that she was going to jump in the dam, but she changed her mind and drove to a burnt-out paddock with the neighbours, where they wrapped themselves in wet blankets. That's where Peter Gough found her. He's a very brave cop."
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.
Last night the 30,000-hectare Beechworth fire was causing concern and none of the major fires burning across the state had been contained.
A containment line was still being built around Alexandra to protect it from the fire.
The Kinglake fires were hitting around Glenburn, with concerns for homes along Melba Highway and Yea River Valley, towards Murrindindi.
The Churchill blaze covers up to 33,000 hectares, the Bunyip fire about 25,000 hectares. And a 15,000-hectare fire has started in national park near Dargo.
