[Music]
hello with at least eight people known
to have died since Monday alone and
thousands continuing to shelter in
evacuation centers the terrifying scale
of Australia's bushfire disaster is
beginning to emerge a mass exodus from
southern New South Wales is underway
with long lines of cars clogging
highways leading right back to Sydney
and Canberra fire officials have told
holidaymakers to urgently leave a long
stretch of coastline before more
ferocious fires are expected to sweep in
over the weekend not everyone wants to
go Haiyan just all the locals I can say
they're all nervous and anxious and
everyone's just on edge looking at the
queues here it would be a long long trip
we actually think we'd be better off
staying here our motorhomes parked by
the water if anything does happen we can
just go down to the water well the fire
itself is colossal flames have been
reported to have reached 70 metres high
but these pictures from Monday show huge
blazes in the state of Victoria the
plume of smoke generated by the inferno
covers five and a half million square
kilometers that's the size of Europe
that thick black cloud is now drifting
towards New Zealand and its pristine
snowy mountains and glaciers let's take
you live to Phil Mercer who joins us now
live from Sydney and we're not even at
the peak of the bushfire season Phil
well what makes this crisis
unprecedented is that this fire season
has started much earlier than normal and
these fires are more widespread than
normal and they are burning with an
intensity that few Australians have ever
seen so this is really the challenge
facing Australia's authorities the
federal government state governments and
also the fire services in many
Australian states how do they cope with
infernos on this scale and what's
happened in southern New South Wales or
what happened on New Year's Eve
really came at the worst possible time
this is a very popular tourist
destination many families residents
retirees and other people would have
been down on the coastline enjoying
Christmas and New Year's festivities and
that's why the evacuation is so chaotic
and complicated there are so many people
in the fire zone some don't want to
leave others are trying to leave but
can't because of various road closures
adding to this sense of unease and
unpredictability is the fact that there
are shortages of food fuel and water and
also internet and phone services have
gone down so that's adding to this great
sense of unease as thousands of people
continue to pour out of that region and
elsewhere fill extraordinary stories of
personal survival we're hearing it left
right and center and I think when you
add up all the emotions that have been
swirling around in this crisis there has
been trauma there has been grief anxiety
fear unpredictability and also great
resilience and strength and also a great
deal of good fortune as well we've seen
firefighters taking footage from inside
their fire engines as they go through
literally a massive firestorm having to
put up protective blankets to protect
themselves blankets to the windows also
homeowners who have heroic ly battled
those flames others have literally had
to drive their cars into the water of
lakes and other people have gone into
the water at the beach to escape the
flames so these extraordinary stories
there are many of them and the
expectation is sadly that we'll be
hearing many more of them because this
crisis shows no sign of ending ok Phil
in Sydney with the latest thank you very
much indeed
well that's we've been hearing smoke
from the bush fires in Australia has
blown to New Zealand blanketing some of
the countries retreating glass years
some of these pictures I think we can
just show you now on
show the ash-covered snow on one of the
country's biggest tourist attractions
the franz josef glacier some climate
change scientists fear that the ash
which drifted nineteen hundred
kilometers across the Tasman Sea could
absorb more heat and melt snow more
quickly
this summer New Zealand glasses are
already shrinking with scientists
predict them they could disappear
completely by the end of the century
people I was wearing the country also
working up to a hazy sunrise smoke
smothering towns nationwide