Black Saturday

Jump to Comments

The lead news story a few weekends ago on NOS and the BBC was the bushfires in south-eastern Australia. A combination of heat and winds made these fires particularly nasty and they have been the worst bushfires in Australian history. Today is a National Day of Mourning for the 200+ people who lost their lives.

From watching the international TV coverage, reading the Melbourne papers online, talking to family, and following my ex-colleagues’ blogs and tweets, I could see that everyone is pretty affected by it all. While I complained about subzero temperatures and snow (the other day I got hailed on grrrr), I was hearing about heatwaves and record temperatures. Two weeks ago it was 46 degrees in Melbourne.

Myself and my family all live in fairly built up areas, so we are not directly affected. (My colleague did ask, as she knows roughly where I live, but I live well within the Melbourne boundary and the fires were outside or on the border. The next day a small fire started ~10 kilometres from where I live though, allegedly deliberately lit.) I’ve never lived in a potential bushfire area, so I have no firsthand experience of what the affected people have been through.

Unfortunately, fires are a common occurrence in summer. A few weeks ago I was in Ballarat (almost two hours from Melbourne) shopping for my sister-in-law’s bridal gown. As soon as we arrived, the smell of smoke was terrible. The guy at the bridal shop told us Lake Wendouree was on fire (again, apparently, and deliberately, apparently). Due to the drought, the lake bed has been dry for over two years. Combined with the heat, it’s not a pleasant environment. However, a few hours later, the temperature had dropped and the smoke had dissipated. The weather can change that quickly.

It’s difficult reading about these events which are close to home. There have been many “smaller” events in Melbourne/Victoria since I moved here, but this has probably been the worst to follow as it’s attracted worldwide coverage and I’ve seen more video footage than I normally would.

It’s also hard when everyone’s opening topic for a conversation with me is something to do with fires. Another example of this occurred when I did an interview for the uni paper last year with an Indian colleague just after the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Instead of starting on topic, the journalist began by asking him about it. My colleague had stayed up into the early hours reading online coverage.

However, it’s been amazing reading the messageboards at the ABC and The Age, where people have offered sympathy and support. Organisations were asking for clothes donations (as most survivors just had what they were wearing) or blood donations for the burns victims. For those of us who aren’t nearby, apart from donating money (via the Red Cross in Australia or the UK), there’s not a lot we can do.

1 Comment

Filed under expat