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MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
Friday, 3 January 2020
Australia fires: tens of thousands stranded while attempting to flee
Visitors who were told to evacuate a vast area along the NSW south
coast before even worse fire conditions return stuck for hours in
gridlocked traffic
Australia fires: risk of more extreme weather leaves people unsure whether to flee or stay – video
Tens of thousands of people remained stranded on Thursday evening
while attempting to flee bushfire-ravaged areas of the south-east
Australian coast – having earlier been urged to leave before the return
of extreme and dangerous weather conditions.
The mass evacuation of communities in New South Wales
and Victoria is among the largest ever emergency movements of people in
Australia. The numbers fleeing the bushfire crisis remain unclear, but
are expected to compare to the 60,000 people who were flown out of
Darwin after Cyclone Tracy in 1974.
Visitors told to flee a vast evacuation area along the NSW south
coast reported sitting in gridlock for up to 10 hours after responding
to the order to evacuate, as further outbreaks of fire and sheer weight
of traffic blocked escape routes north of Ulladulla and near Cooma in
the Snowy Mountains.
“I
know you can have kids in the car and there is anxiety and there is
stress and the traffic is not moving quickly but the best thing to do –
the best thing that helps those out there volunteering, out there trying
to restore some order to these situations, is for everyone to be
patient,” Morrison said.
'You're not welcome': Australian PM Scott Morrison heckled by bushfire victims - video
On Thursday afternoon an angry protester told Morrison he should be
“ashamed of himself” and that he had “left the country to burn” during a
tour of the burnt out town of Cobargo.
Authorities in Victoria
hold grave fears for 17 people missing across the state, and advised
anyone who could do so to leave fire-affected places in the East
Gippsland region.
At
the Victorian coastal inlet of Mallacoota, which is among 20 towns that
have been isolated by the fires since Tuesday, between 3,000 and 4,000
people were facing an impending food and water shortage as they waited
to be evacuated by sea.
On Thursday afternoon, Australian defence force officials said they
expected to relocate 800 people using the naval ship HMAS Choules, while
others will be airlifted out.
Commanding Officer of Choules, CMDR Houlihan, led the ADF team onshore today to provide timely and relevant support.
New South Wales has declared a seven-day state of emergency
before extreme conditions, including temperatures exceeding 40C, return
to the south coast, Snowy Mountains and the outskirts of Sydney on
Friday and Saturday.
Evacuation orders were issued to holidaymakers from Batemans
Bay to the Victorian border and people were advised that two highway
escape routes were opened – north to Sydney along the Princes Highway,
and south, via the Monaro Highway, hooking back to Canberra through
Cooma. But on Thursday evening both routes were at a standstill as the
fire threat lingered, with tailbacks of up to 25km reported.
The northern route was blocked from about midday by a bushfire that closed the Princes Highway. Motorists heading north were advised to delay their trip or take shelter at Ulladulla. The
road remained closed about 6pm. Motorists were reported abandoning
their cars or heading to the south.
Gridlock all the way through Ulladulla, similar scenes in Milton, Nowra and Batemans Bay. Just met a woman who’s arrived in Ulladulla after leaving Depot Beach - 30km south - at 7am. I’ll have more on @abcnews The World Today @ 12.10pm on Local Radio, 1pm on @RadioNational
The southern route was also hampered by a bushfire that came close to
the Monaro Highway and caused delays north of Cooma. Witnesses said the
lines of stationary traffic near Cooma were more than 30km long.
Residents in the town of Batlow, famous for its apples, were advised to
leave by Friday morning because of forecast fire danger in the
Kosciuszko national park and surrounding areas. The entire park has been
evacuated and authorities warned conditions were likely to be so severe
that surrounding towns could not be defended.
One account from a friend trying to evacuate from Malua Bay today:
Headed north at 6am. Took 6.5 hours to do 80kms.... then highway closed at Benalong and we were turned back. so we headed south. now at a standstill coming into Bega 10 hours in the car and counting.
NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said conditions
on Saturday were forecast to be worse than those on New Year’s Eve.
“Those fires have spread at the absolute worst-case scenario, which
typically is not what happens when it plays out on the ground,”
Fitzsimmons said.
“The conditions on Saturday are likely to be worse than New Year’s
Eve and a lot of those areas in the south-east quadrant of the state
have the potential to be impacted and impacted very heavily.”
The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, said the state of
emergency from Friday would give emergency services the authority to
undertake forced evacuations and road closures at short notice.
“We don’t take these decisions lightly but we also want to make sure
we’re taking every single precaution to be prepared for what could be a
horrible day on Saturday,” she said.
Since Christmas Day, nine people have been killed in bushfires across New South Wales and Victoria, while 17 people have died since the season began.
About 150 fires continued to burn in Victoria and NSW on Thursday
afternoon and officials warned they would be unable to control the
blazes before conditions worsen.
“We have no capacity to contain these fires … the fires are going to
do what they are going to do, and people have to get out of that area,”
NSW Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said.
Aerial footage shows bushfires raging in the Australian state of Victoria – video
Earlier on Tuesday, Morrison attended the funeral of Geoffrey Keaton,
a volunteer firefighter who died on 19 December when his truck rolled
at Green Wattle Creek, south of Sydney.
At a press conference afterwards, Morrison was repeatedly asked about his government’s climate policy.
“I understand the anxiety and I understand the fear that is there for
many and I understand the frustration, but this is a natural disaster,”
he said. “What we are saying is we cannot control the natural disaster
but what we can do is control our response.
“The drought has created a tinder box around the country and that
has, through various forms of ignition, has seen these fires run for
long periods of time.”
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