The australian authorities have been asked to 240,000 people evacuated high-risk areas for the threat of fire in the south of the country, in the State of Victoria. The flames have wiped out up to now more than ten million hectares, in what is already the worst season of forest fires in the history of the country by the large surface area burned --in loss of human lives were worse than the fires of 2009--. The prime minister of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, has urged people to be alert and prepared to evacuate if asked to do so.

“Even with rain in Melbourne (capital of Victoria), with better conditions forecast for the next week, there's a long way to go in what has been a season of unprecedented fires. Of course, we know that we have many weeks still ahead,” said Andrews in a statement picked up by Reuters. The authorities of other States affected by the fires, as New South Wales and South Australia, also have urged the population to be alert and leave if necessary.

This new request from the authorities comes a week after the own Andrews ordered the evacuation of 100,000 people in Victoria, by declaring the disaster situation in six areas of the State. The evacuation was heralded by the local media as the “greatest of the history of Victoria”. In turn, while the people went out into the highways in search of a safe place last week, 4,000 people began to be evacuated from Mallacoota in the south of this State, where they were trapped on the beaches because of the fires. In Victoria have already burned more than 1.3 million hectares and there are 19 active foci.

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The alarming situation has caused thousands of people to declare the Friday in Melbourne against the australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, who is accused of poor management of the crisis. Among the protestors ' demands included the increase of the appropriation for the fire department, the adoption of urgent measures against climate change and the resignation of the prime minister himself.

As proof of the gravity of the situation in the south of the country, a government report points out that until Friday, they burned 104 parks and reserves in Victoria, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The burning of these areas of great biodiversity is due above all to the fires in East Gippsland, where the flames burned with particular virulence in the last week. “To date, the fires have burned, mostly, areas of high natural value, affecting 9% of the areas with the greatest biodiversity in the State,” the report says. The document indicates that among the areas that have burned down are the 70% of the rainforests of the State.

on the other hand, the size of the fires has caused many Governments show their solidarity with the australian authorities. Countries such as the united States and Canada have sent troops to assist in the tasks of extinction. Even the king Salman of Saudi Arabia had a telephone conversation on Friday with Morrison, as reported by both Governments. In it, the monarch noted, “the willingness of the kingdom to provide all possible assistance for Australia in excess of this disaster.”

so far have killed 27 people in all the country from the month of October. The fire season has started much earlier than normal in a country where summer begins in December. Already in November, the fires were particularly severe in States such as Queensland (to the east of the country) and New South Wales (whose capital is Sydney). In this latter region have burnt down nearly five million hectares, about half of which has been burned around the country. The terrible crisis pushed the prime minister to announce early this week the creation of a fund for those affected by the fires, which will have an initial endowment of 1.240 million euros.

Date Of Update: 11 January 2020, 15:00