THE DEATH toll in the Australian bush fire disaster stood at 171 last night, with fears that the final figure could rise to more than 200.
Prime minister Kevin Rudd described the deliberate lighting of fires as “mass murder” following confirmation that police are treating some fire-affected areas as crime scenes.
During a television interview, an emotional Mr Rudd said “What do you say about anyone like that? What do you say? I don’t know. There’s no words to describe it other than it’s mass murder.”
The fires in the state of Victoria have wreaked a devastation that has not spared people, property or animals. About 750 homes have been destroyed, 23 fires were still burning last night and more than 400 people have been injured, some very badly.
A doctor treating burns victims at Melbourne’s The Alfred hospital says the scale of the disaster is worse than what he saw after the 2002 Bali bombings.
Dr De Villiers Smit said all 20 bush fire burns victims brought to The Alfred, including four young children, had burns to more than 30 per cent of their bodies. Several are on life support. “This is by far the worst disaster I’ve ever been involved with,” he said.
“These patients that we are seeing right now are major burns patients, whereas with the Bali bombing there was more trauma involved, broken bones, blast injuries because of the bombs going off.”
Dr Smit said the patients in The Alfred were “incredibly emotional” as most had lost loved ones. “Not only do they have to cope with their own problem at the moment, they also have to cope with the loss of their loved ones as well,” he said.
The hospital’s burns unit surgical director Heather Cleland said many victims had seen others die in the fires. “The classic burns patterns that we are seeing is mostly due to people who have been forced to run through flames or have been exposed to extremely high radiant heat temperatures,” said Dr Cleland.
Such was the pressure on its resources yesterday that for a while The Alfred ran out of the painkiller morphine.
As the Australian flag flew at half mast over parliament house, deputy prime minister Julia Gillard said the bush fires were “a tragedy beyond belief, beyond precedent and, really, beyond words”.
Victorian premier John Brumby announced an inquiry into the fires amid criticism that traditional advice to households for dealing with bush fires – “stay and defend or leave early” – may have failed and increased the death toll in what is now Australia’s worst peacetime disaster.
“We need to examine every possible issue, every single fact, every single policy . . . so that lessons can be learned,” he said.
Federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull said the nation must do “whatever it takes” to help communities rebuild and has praised the efforts of emergency workers.
The town of Marysville, 100km northeast of Victorian capital Melbourne, has been almost completely destroyed.
At least 10 people in the town were killed in the fire. Local resort manager Stephen Collins told ABC television his house and the business he managed were lost in the fire. He escaped with the clothes he was wearing, a spare pair of socks, a camera and some computer disks. “I left my cat Stardust. If you’re there, I’m coming for you,” Mr Collins said.
The sheer magnitude of the disaster has seen more than 10 million Australian dollars – €5.1 million – donated to bush fire appeals in just over 24 hours.
The Australian Red Cross received about $8.6 million from 49,000 donations and a Salvation Army appeal raised $2 million.
“It’s an unprecedented outpouring of goodwill never seen before in our living memories,” Salvation Army spokesman Pat Daley said.
The Red Cross also received a record number of blood donations yesterday, with more than 6,000 people coming forward.