As you've probably noticed, Australia caught on fire last Sunday. Actually, these 20 some fires that burned over 1,800 square miles, 700 homes and claimed an estimated 300 lives are about 800 miles to the south of where I live in the state of Victoria. Canberra, which is about 3 hours drive to the south is experiencing haze from all the smoke. It is awful and the worst part is that 5 or so of the fires were set by different people. I think they've arrested one person that they are holding, others have been booked and released. Some fires were set by copycat morons days afterwards, when the news reports started coming in on the mass destruction and death. What kind of sickness could do this?
This is a National tragedy, the worst in cost and humanity in the country's history and the Aussies are responding in incredible fashion.
The part you don't hear in the American media is how much relief effort is happening. Wednesday when fund raising really got into gear, an average of $1,000,000 per hour was being donated! As the rest of the world, Australia is in a recession but the donations keep pouring in! In Queensland to the north, summer monsoons have dumped FEET of water over the area for MONTHS. Over 1/3 of the state is UNDER water, 3,000 homes have been damaged and dozens killed yet a lot of these people have signed over their government relief checks to the relief effort in Victoria. It's incredible. We Americans think of ourselves as very generous people and we are, but the Australians are certainly on par. Just think, $1,000,000 an hour from a country who's population is barely 21 million! I think the total is now around $100,000,000 making that's over $4 for every person in the country!
Here's a link to some pictures thanks to Aunt Jeanne
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/bushfires_in_victoria_australi.html.
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