http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/02/08/96-dead-in-worst-fires/ said:
February 8th, 2009
96 dead in ‘worst fires’
Posted: 11:16 AM ET
(CNN) — At least 96 people have been killed in Australian wildfires which the country’s public broadcaster Sunday called the worst in the nation’s history.
Kendra Jackson, leading senior constable of Australia’s Victoria state police, told CNN the latest death toll Sunday. The number of dead is now far higher than the toll of 75 in the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983. Close to 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of land have burned.
Thousands of weary firefighters spent Sunday fighting a losing battle to contain the flames.
“It’s an absolute feeling of helplessness,” said Michelle Achison, who lives in a suburb of Victoria, the state most affected. “There are communities that are completely flattened. There’s nothing at all. And each and every one of us knows somebody who will lose everything.”