Tourists, residents find shelter in public buildings or head to the beach to escape blaze as sky turns red.
Thousands of tourists and residents in an Australian seaside town hunkered down in public buildings or waded into water at the seafront on Tuesday as wailing emergency sirens warned of a looming, fierce firefront.
Authorities said on Monday they feared three people had been killed in New South Wales while four others were missing in Victoria after powerful blazes in both states over the past 24 hours. One photograph of the town’s beachfront, which is hugely popular during the current summer holiday season, showed people laying shoulder-to-shoulder on the sand, some wearing gas masks.Among them was local Mark Tregellas, a retired policeman, who had packed up his most precious possessions in his campervan to head to the overcrowded boat ramp car park.
“It’s absolutely horrific at the moment,” Winterson told ABC. “We have got blustering winds, we are surrounded by red sky, choking dust, choking smoke and embers are falling on the town and we are completely isolated.”Authorities said the main firefront was moving up the coast and warned people in its path to seek shelter close to the beach.
Bushfires were also burning on the outskirts of Sydney, cloaking the harbour city in smoke ahead of planned New Year’s Eve celebrations, which authorities said would go ahead despite some public calls for them to be cancelled in solidarity with fire-hit areas in New South Wales.
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