It appears that the death toll from the recent Victorian bushfires will not much exceed two hundred - the numbers of those feared dead at Marysville being sharply reduced, some misidentified remains being determined to be animal not human, it being realized that some remains were counted twice, and some listed as missing feared dead being found alive and well after all. It is still a dreadful tragedy, and the numbers who perished at Strathewen and Kinglake now surpass those at Marysville, marking the Kinglake fire (which merged with the one that swept through Marysville) as the most costly to human life.
At least there were not many more victims - the five police who persuaded 200 at Marysville to flee before the impending holocaust are acclaimed as heroes, since if they had not got them out those people would most probably have died there also.
UPDATE: The final death toll was 173.
UPDATE: The final death toll was 173.
No comments:
Post a Comment