Australia wildfires: Thousands stranded in Tasmania

Wildfires on the Australian island of Tasmania have stranded thousands of people and destroyed at least 100 homes.

Much of Australia is experiencing a heatwave, and temperatures in the Tasmanian state capital Hobart earlier reached a record high of 41C.

Some took shelter on beaches on the Tasman Peninsula, which remains cut off.

A flotilla has brought in supplies and hundreds have been evacuated by sea.

he BBC’s Nick Bryant in Sydney says large swathes of south-east Australia are suffering from the worst fire conditions since the Black Saturday disaster almost four years ago, when 173 people in rural Victoria lost their lives.

He says there has been a combination of a record-breaking heatwave, high winds and drought, with Tasmania by far the worst hit.

On the island, some 40 separate fires are burning – four of them out of control – despite temperatures falling back from their peak.

At least 100 properties have been destroyed, a large number in the small community of Dunalley, east of Hobart, where the police station and school were burned down.

One resident of Dunalley told ABC radio: “All I could do was drive the car out of the shed, drive across the other side of the road and stand back and look at the whole place just being engulfed in flames, just like a movie.”

The main road to the Tasman Peninsula, south-east of Hobart, has been cut off, stranding thousands of people, many of them tourists in the historic site of Port Arthur.

Chief Officer Mike Brown, of the Tasmanian Fire Service, said: “Clearly, it’s going to take a long time and a lot of work to properly contain these fires.”

Prime Minister Julia Gillard urged people to look after their personal safety.

She told ABC: ”My message is there’s only one you. Everything else in life, at the end of the day, no matter how precious, can be replaced.”

She added: “It’s a very Australian thing to fear and also to understand the devastation of bushfire.”

Much of southern Australia remains under intense heat.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a German woman died while walking in 40 degree temperatures in Cape Otway, Victoria.

R.S