The death toll increased to 26 in Australia due to the raging bushfires that have ravaged the country since September 2019 , according to authorities on Wednesday.
The toll reached 26 after firefighter Matt Kavanagh, 43, died wile on duty after a crash between two vehicles which police linked to the bushfires, Victoria’s Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville said.
This is the third death in Victoria due to the fires, which have already caused 20 fatalities in New South Wales and three more in South Australia, Efe news reported.
The confirmation came as firefighters continued their struggle to control dozens of fires that have been raging in the country’s southeast as temperatures are expected to rise above 40 degrees Celsius at the end of the week.
On Tuesday, hundreds of Australians were arrested for deliberately starting the devastating bushfires since September.
Earlier, PM Scott Morrison said, “This is taking a very heavy toll,” adding to it that more than 1,500 homes lost to fires across the country since September.
Morrison also cancelled his official trip to India that was planned for this month in order to deal with a bushfire crisis ravaging parts of his country.
About 4,000 people in the town of Mallacoota in Victoria headed to the waterfront after the main road was cut off.
The New South Wales (NSW) state had declared a state of emergency, with bushfire conditions expected to worsen over the coming days as a record-breaking heatwave sweeps across the country.
Catastrophic bushfires have turned swathes of land into smouldering, blackened hellscapes and destroyed an area about the size of the island of Ireland, according to official figures, with authorities warning the disaster still has weeks or months to run.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose government has been criticised for its slow response to the emergency, pledged Australian $2 billion ($1.4 billion) of taxpayer money for a national recovery fund. “It’s a long road ahead and we will be with these communities every step of the way as they rebuild,” he added.
The impact of the bushfires has spread beyond affected communities, with heavy smoke engulfing the country’s second-largest city Melbourne and the national capital Canberra. Some government departments were shut in Canberra as the city’s air quality was once-again ranked the world’s poorest, according to independent online air-quality index monitor Air Visual.
The disaster has sparked growing public anger with Morrison. Rallies are planned on Friday to call on his government to step up efforts to tackle climate change, which experts say have helped fuel the fires.
They broke out before the beginning of summer in the southern hemisphere, which begins in December and where a shortage of rain is expected until the end of March.