AUSTRALIA: BUSHFIRES UPDATE – Sunday 15 February 2009

It has been over a week since the bushfires in Victoria took a turn for the worse. Bushfires had been burning in heatwave affected Victoria for some time previous to the conflagration that took place last Saturday, but it was on that day that they turned deadly.

A week since that deadly day and the death toll remains unclear, with 181 confirmed dead and some 120 people still missing, feared dead. Over 1800 homes have been destroyed, along with many other buildings including churches, schools, police stations and shops. The damage bill is expected to run into the billions of dollars.

Whatever way you look at it, this bushfire crisis is a major disaster and the worst to have ever come to Australia. All other disasters fade away in contrast to this.

The death toll breaks down to this:

Callignee Upper	1
Callignee	11
Koornalla	4
Hazelwood	4
Jeeralang	1
Mudgegonga	2
Eaglehawk	1
Humevale	6
Steels Creek	7
St Andrews	22
Arthurs Creek	3
Yarra Glen	1
Hazeldene	2
Taggerty	3
Marysville	15
Narbethong	9
Flowerdale	4
Heathcote Junction	1
Kinglake	35
Kinglake West	4
Strathewen	30
Wandong	4
Clonbinane	1
Others	10
Total	181

 

Thus far we know that some of the fires were started by lightening strikes and arsonists. It is now thought that at least one of the fires may have been started by poorly maintained electrical infrastructure near Kilmore East. A class action against the private contractor SP Ausnet (Singapore based) is being planned. Over 100 people died from a blaze in the Kilmore East area.

ABOVE: Another theft of a bushfire appeal collection tin

CONGO: CIVIL WAR COMES TO GOMA

The civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is fast approaching the same level of crisis as the Rwanda genocide. Rwandan-backed Tutsi rebels have now closed on the Congo city of Goma. There are reports that there are now some 250 000 displaced persons in the Congo.

Once again it is the civilian population that is bearing the brunt of the civil war with tens of thousands fleeing the fighting, looting and raping that is being conducted on a widespread scale.

Tutsi rebels have now forced some 50 000 refugees from their refugee camps and burnt the camps to the ground.

United Nations peacekeepers have increasingly become irrelevant as the conflagration grows.

The civil war has come about because of the Congolese government’s inability/failure to disarm Hutu militants who fled Rwanda and took refuge in the forests of eastern Congo following the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The Tutsi rebel leader is Laurent Nkunda, a former Congolese general who is fighting for Tutsi rights. The Rwandan government is backing the rebels.

The rebel leader is said to be an Evangelical Christian, yet he is a brutal warlord responsible for the same manner of atrocities as those of the government troops in Goma.

A truce had been reached in 2003 after some 5 million deaths and a war involving some 8 African countries, but this has now been destroyed with the latest round of fighting which began in August 2008. There has been a ceasefire in force since last Wednesday, but it is unsure if this will hold for much longer with government troops going on a rampage through Goma, raping, looting, burning and killing civilians. There is no reason to expect it will be any different should the rebel army move on Goma as well.