It’s New Year’s Eve in Australia! Today on the 31 December 2019 in Australian news:
4,000 people forced to shelter on the beach during midday daylight hours as the fires surround them in Victoria. The fire has since passed the beach but many homes were lost and they are still stuck on that beach.
Some families took boats to the water for safety:
The near entirety of east gippsland was evacuated on Monday and many areas remain inaccessible. That’s 30,000+ locals and assorted tourists
Similar evacuations play out in Nowra, NSW with the local population evacuating to the beaches as the skies turn black (it’s 4pm!).
and again at Bateman’s Bay…and again and again across the country.
The extent of the fires is creating dry thunderstorms - all the risks of lightning and none of the benefits of rain.
Sixty fires started today, adding to the two hundred that started on Monday. This is a map of all NEW fires in the past 24 hours
The Mogo zoo had to evacuate - thankfully the animals survived the immediate fire. People fleeing Mogo were cut off by the fires from the evacuation centres
Even those not directly in the path of the fires are experiencing the effects of the smoke as it drifts across town and effects health.
All these photos and snippets are from 31 December 2019, one day on Australia. There are more, but I’m getting depressed looking at them, trying to decide what tumblr would find interesting to share and raise awareness versus what won’t. Not a judgement call I like making.
It’s currently 6:30pm, so there’s still 5.5 hours left of this day for more to come. You can see before/after photos here.
Australia is only four weeks into summer (”fire season”) but the bushfires began 16 weeks ago - in the second week of spring.
This year’s season of extreme bushfires is not normal.
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