Australian authorities urged nearly a quarter of a million people to evacuate their homes today and prepared military backup as soaring temperatures and erratic winds were expected to fan deadly bushfires across the east coast.
“If you can get out, you should get out, you shouldn’t be in the remote and forested parts of our state,” Andrew Crisp, emergency management commissioner for the state of Victoria, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Twenty-seven people have been killed and thousands subjected to repeat evacuations as monster — and unpredictable — fires have scorched through more than 10.3 million hectares of land, an area the size of South Korea.ReutersPrime Minister Scott Morrison said he had given instructions to the military so “that they are to stand ready to move and support immediately” as firefighters battle 150 blazes across the country.
Staying alive is more important than anything else as it has no spare.