Police allege the motorist failed to stop at a red light before hitting the tram
One of Sydney’s new trams derailed on Sunday after being struck by a motorist who police allege drove through a red light.
The collision between the tram and a car temporarily shut down a busy Sydney street on Australia Day. South Dowling Street at Surry Hills was closed in both directions for about 90 minutes following Sunday’s accident, which occurred just before 5pm.
Continue reading...Six volunteer firefighters reportedly taken to hospital with ‘serious injuries’ in truck rollover, names of three US firefighters killed in C-130 crash released, and Sydney covered in thick smoke haze. Follow the latest news and live updates
Thank you to the 41 firefighters from across the US who have arrived today to assist in managing Victoria’s ongoing and significant fire threat. Following briefing and training sessions, they will join local crews fighting fires in East Gippsland. pic.twitter.com/GZgT0zFe5C
Agriculture Victoria’s count of the number of animals killed in the Victorian fires has reached 6,422, the Weekly Times reports. Most of the losses were in the north-east, mainly in the upper Murray, where 5,440 animals – including 3,292 beef cattle and 1,735 sheep – were killed.
Continue reading...ACT residents near bushfire south of Canberra told to seek shelter as contact lost with large water-bombing plane fighting New South Wales bushfire. Follow latest news and live updates
There’s a steady stream of people arriving at the Moruya Showgrounds, which has been re-opened as an evacuation centre. For a lot of people, it’s becoming a home away from home.
One woman from Congo, just south of here, told me it was her third time here since New Years Eve.
The sky is looking ominous outside the Moruya showground where our reporter on the ground, Michael McGowan, captured this image.
Continue reading...Hail smashes into Parliament House and brings down trees in the ACT, with heavy rainfall hitting NSW, Queensland and Victoria
Australia’s south-east has been lashed by severe thunderstorms and large hailstones that destroyed buildings and cars in Canberra and left two tourists in hospital after they were injured by lightning.
Two supercell thunderstorms brought hail and heavy rain to cities and towns across the east coast on Monday, battering the outer suburbs of Sydney about 3pm, with 4.5cm hailstones recorded and strong winds bringing trees down over cars in the Sutherland area.
Continue reading...Videos posted to social media show the clouds turning day into night in some areas
Damaging winds produced by thunderstorms across central New South Wales have whipped up dust storms that turned daytime into night in some towns.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a series of severe thunderstorm warnings on Sunday evening for inland NSW with the associated winds generating massive dust clouds.
Continue reading...The 84-year-old dies in Sydney’s Concord hospital as Australia’s months-long fire crisis continues
The death toll from the unprecedented bushfires in New South Wales has climbed to 21 following the death in hospital of an elderly man burned in Cobargo on New Year’s Eve.
The 84-year-old was taken from his home on Tuesday 31 December to South East Regional hospital before he was transferred to Concord hospital in Sydney where he died in the early hours of Saturday.
Continue reading...Ecologist fears the Macleay River may take decades to recover, with heavy rains likely to affect other waterways
Hundreds of thousands of native fish are estimated to have died in northern New South Wales after rains washed ash and sludge from bushfires into the Macleay River.
Parts of the Macleay River – favoured by recreational fishers – have been turned into what locals described as “runny cake mix” that stank of rotting vegetation and dead fish.
Continue reading...Nine aerial photos depict the crisis from beach to bush, farm to forest, across NSW and South Australia
More than 10.7m hectares of land have burnt so far in Australia’s bushfires – larger than the total area of South Korea, or Portugal, and 1.3 times the size of Scotland.
The ongoing and unprecedented bushfire crisis has spread across six states and multiple months.
Continue reading...Fire-hit areas receive desperately needed rain, as severe thunderstorms cause flooding in Melbourne
Up to 50mm of rain has fallen across parts of New South Wales and Victoria, dampening bushfires even as dozens more continue to burn.
Fire-hit regions of NSW’s Snowy Valley and south coast, and Victoria’s East Gippsland and north-east, received as much as 15mm of desperately needed rain on Wednesday and Thursday, while severe thunderstorms caused flooding in Melbourne.
Continue reading...Fires take an enormous toll on wildlife, with huge numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles and insects killed
Australia’s continuing bushfire crisis has taken an enormous toll on wildlife, with huge numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and other species killed.
The ecologist Chris Dickman has estimated more than a billion animals have died around the country – a figure that excludes fish, frogs, bats and insects.
Continue reading...An off-duty volunteer firefighter in New South Wales was seriously injured protecting his own property and another four also injured
Australian firefighters are preparing to use one week of calmer conditions to contain the most volatile parts of bushfires that are threatening private property and destroying large swathes of national parks in eastern Victoria and southern New South Wales.
The state of disaster in Victoria lifted at midnight on Saturday morning after firefighters managed to slow the progress of a 60,000ha fire that threatened the Alpine townships of Bright and Harrietville in north-east Victoria on Friday night.
Continue reading...This liveblog is now closed
We will leave our coverage of the ongoing bushfire crisis here for the night. A mercifully quiet day on firegrounds across the country.
Here is where things stand:
We have a bit more information about the man who was burned while defending his property near Tumbarumba in New South Wales yesterday.
The man was an RFS volunteer, but he was not engaged in RFS work yesterday. Instead, Guardian Australia understands, he was driving a quad bike around his own property defending against spot fires when he received burns to his leg.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed. Our live coverage will continue tomorrow morning
We are wrapping up the live blog now, but we will be back at 7am AEDT for the latest on the fires.
As of 9pm, this is what we know.
There’s now what media (but not RFS) refer to as a megablaze in the Kosciuszko national park with three fires at emergency level in that area of southern NSW, just near the Victorian border.
There’s also concern that a fire at watch-and-act level in Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains could worsen around midnight once the southerly reaches there. People in the Wentworth Falls and Leura areas are being advised to stay alert.
Alpine areas of Victoria and NSW among those most under threat, while climate protesters take to the streets in major cities
Thousands of climate protesters flooded the streets of Australian state capitals on Friday night as fire authorities warned of another dangerous night ahead in four states.
Firefighters in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia continued to battle fires, with gusty winds expected to create hazardous firefighting conditions late into the night.
Continue reading...East Gippsland and Victoria’s north-east told to evacuate as NSW braces for heatwave and firefighters battle Kangaroo Island blaze
Residents in large areas of Victoria have again been advised to leave their homes before a day of “extreme” fire conditions throughout south-eastern Australia that could see the merging of at least two major fires.
At least 5% of Victoria has already burned. Authorities sent a text message to East Gippsland and the north-east region on Thursday advising people within the at-risk area, which extends from the New South Wales border to the coast, to evacuate before “heat spike” conditions on Friday.
Continue reading...Rain falls on some NSW, Victorian and South Australian bushfire-affected areas, but worse fire conditions are forecast to return. Follow all today’s latest news and live updates
Andrew Crisp:
Speaking with the incident controller here at Bairnsdale a short time ago, some of our concern is the fires up in the alpine area, around Omeo, and the potential for them to travel south with the northerly and join the fires down in this part of the world.
We saw, only a few days ago, where there were more than 300 people on the oval at Omeo where some helicopters were there to take people out.
The Victorian emergency commissioner, Andrew Crisp, has an update:
There are three communities we haven’t been able to drive in. When I say ‘drive’ even with those other communities it is basically bushtracks and emergency vehicles to get in, it is where there is no real road access.
We’ve been able to get helicopters and sat phones in to make sure people have supplies.
People in Cobargo, New South Wales, left numb by devastation wrought on their homes by fires
The joey rescued from his mother’s pouch after the bushfires that tore through the village of Cobargo on the south coast of New South Wales last week has no name yet, but Kyle Moser is leaning towards “Ali”. “Like the fighter,” he explained.
In a room at the back of the Cobargo post office, Moser and his partner, David Wilson, are caring for the kangaroo soon to be known as Ali and two wallaby joeys. Next door is the remains of a burnt-out cafe. Across the road are the charred ruins of what used to be a leather shop, a yoga studio and an incense shop.
Continue reading...Days of limbo wear down NSW-Victoria communities displaced by blazes ripping through swaths of east coast
Shelley Caban just wants it to be over.
“Sometimes I think, ‘Fuck it, just burn it all, the house and everything,’” she says. “It’s the waiting and the limbo, you just feel like anything has to be better.”
Continue reading...NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says he was frustrated to learn of ADF deployment from the media. Follow all today’s live news and latest updates
The situation is deteriorating in Eden on the Far South Coast. A bushfire moved quickly up from the NSW-Victorian border last night, as the southerly change moved up the coast and turned fires northward. The fire, dubbed the “border fire”, burnt last night from the Victorian border to Victorian Border to the southern shores of Twofold Bay.
It has already affected the areas of Wonboyn, Kiah, Narrabarba and surrounds. Properties have been damaged in the area and building impact assessment teams will be deployed to assess the destruction.
The border fire is now threatening the town of Eden. An update posted on the Bega Valley Shire Council’s website a short while ago warned Eden residents, including those in Snug Cove Wharf, to leave now and head to Merimbula or Bega. Authorities were still attempting to define the fire line near Eden.
NORTHERN TERRITORY
* No current bushfires
Continue reading...Scott Morrison has called up ADF reservists to help in the bushfire crisis. Two people have died in SA fires on Kangaroo Island, as New South Wales and Victoria face more horrendous conditions. Follow live news and latest updates
• Kangaroo Island fires: two people killed in ‘virtually unstoppable’ bushfire
• How you can donate and help the volunteer firefighters
We mentioned a little earlier *that* party political ad put out by Scott Morrison’s office spruiking their response to the bushfires. The reaction to the video has been, er, less than positive. The Australia Defence Association, a non-partisan defence watchdog and think tank, says the video’s use of military personnel is a clear breach of non-partisanship conventions that restrict the use of the ADF in party political advertisements.
1) Party-political advertising milking ADF support to civil agencies fighting bushfires is a clear breach of the (reciprocal) non-partisanship convention applying to both the ADF & Ministers/MPs. 2) Also cliche-ridden. 3) Its "defence force", not "Defence Force". #auspol #ausdef https://t.co/RlepHHbIx9
Wow. A self-promotional commercial with cheesy elevator music? This is one of the most tone-deaf things I’ve ever seen a country’s leader put out during a crisis. Shameless & shameful. https://t.co/ISgYEtlsb7
We are getting reports that people are being moved from evacuation centres in Eden, on NSW’s far south coast, towards Merimbula. Fires burning just north of the Victorian border, including the Poole Road fire, are spreading quickly and emergency warnings have been issued. The southerly change is generally moving those fires on the NSW-Victorian border to the north.
#firesNSW The message came through on local ABC there are buses evacuating 300 people and people have been told to evacuate to Merimbula from Eden.
Crazy day at Eden severe N westerly hit Eden this afternoon. Left the house as prepared as it could be and went to Eden evac centre. Ash and smoke severe and it was dark by 6pm. Settling in there then at 8 pm they ordered us to Merimbula as precaution.
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