国产热热热精品,亚洲视频久久】日韩,三级婷婷在线久久,99人妻精品视频,精品九热人人肉肉在线,AV东京热一区二区,91po在线视频观看,久久激情宗合,青青草黄色手机视频

WORLD> Asia-Pacific
Australian bushfire threat falls with record temperatures
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-02 16:49

MELBOURNE – Stricken residents of southeast Australia began returning to their charred homes Monday after bushfires set by arsonists and fuelled by record temperatures reduced 29 houses to ruins.

A NASA Earth Observatory photo shows a large plume of smoke spreading southward from a fire (outlined) in the Australian state of Victoria. Stricken residents of southeast Australia began returning to their charred homes Monday after bushfires set by arsonists and fuelled by record temperatures reduced 29 houses to ruins. [Agencies]

Cooler temperatures brought desperately needed relief from the worst heatwave in a century that fanned fires, paralysed electricity and rail grids and claimed up to 35 lives.

The heatwave even crippled a brand new 100-million-dollar (US$63 million) Ferris wheel in the country's second largest city, Melbourne, when three days of searing temperatures buckled braces on the ride, its operators said.

"It's just seeing it so black, there's nothing left," said tearful Helen Morrison as she picked through a mangled pile of corrugated iron and ash that had been her home in the town of Boolarra, northeast of Melbourne.

"How could they do something like this?" she said after authorities said they were hunting arsonists who are believed to have set the blaze that burned out of control from Thursday until Sunday.

The premier of the state of Victoria, John Brumby, pledged Monday to find the arsonists and punish them severely.

"To think that there is somebody, or somebodies, out there deliberately lighting a fire which not only has destroyed property, destroyed people's homes, their dreams, which could have cost lives," he said.

"There is no more... cowardly, destructive act, no more anti-social act than deliberately lighting a fire to threaten property and threaten people, and I can tell you that every single resource is being thrown at this to catch the person or persons responsible."

Convicted arsonists face up to 15 years in jail and up to 25 years if the fires they set take lives.

Five other blazes were still burning in Victoria region, but firefighters were beginning to win the battle after temperatures dropped from their peak of 43 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit) on Friday down into the early 30s.

"For the moment it looks like the worst is over," a spokeswoman of the Country Fire Service said.

The worst heatwave in a century has also been blamed for deaths from heat-related illnesses in Melbourne, Victoria's state capital, and Adelaide, the capital of neighbouring South Australia.

榆树市| 乌恰县| 兖州市| 潜山县| 南和县| 洮南市| 宁河县| 临沭县| 大英县| 长丰县| 乌什县| 新余市| 青海省| 五指山市| 嘉善县| 理塘县| 扎赉特旗| 沙坪坝区| 阜平县| 灵宝市| 两当县| 文登市| 绥江县| 连山| 安庆市| 孝昌县| 旬阳县| 科技| 北安市| 竹山县| 沐川县| 阜新| 太仆寺旗| 尤溪县| 宜章县| 万山特区| 龙里县| 定结县| 岚皋县| 武山县| 西安市|