Desperate times as temperatures predicted to soar
Assad’s newpeace plan fails to inspire
Sydney – Severe bushfire conditions were predicted to hit NSW today, with temperatures set to rise to 43 degrees Celsius in Sydney.
The hot and dry conditions have been labelled as ‘‘catastrophic’’ by authorities, with a total fire ban established state-wide.
Yesterday, teams from the NSW Rural Fire Service fought large blazes at Oura and Shoalhaven, continuing to monitor and contain the fires throughout the night.
An emergency alert telephone warning message was also launched by the fire service, sent to residents in the Illawarra, Shoalhaven, and Southern Ranges regions, which are deemed high risk.
Across the state, all national parks and reserves will be closed today due to the fire risk.
Yesterday, rangers began visiting popular campsites, encouraging people to leave.
They continued visiting sites this morning, with a National Parks and Wildlife spokesman stating there would be no forced evacuations unless there was a fire emergency.
Meanwhile, officials searched for bodies among the charred ruins of more than 100 homes and other buildings destroyed by wildfires in the Australian island state of Tasmania.
About 100 residents remained unaccounted for, three days after the fires broke out.
As scores of fires raged across Australia’s parched southeast, a volunteer firefighter suffered severe burns to his hands and face while fighting a grass fire near Gundaroo village, about 220 kilometres southwest of Sydney, the NSW Rural Fire Service said in a statement. The firefighter was flown to a hospital in Sydney.
Tasmania’s acting police commissioner, Scott Tilyard, said no casualties from the fires had been reported in the state. But he said it would take time before officials were certain that no one had died in the blazes, which have razed 20,000 hectares of forests and farmland across southern Tasmania since Friday.
Tilyard said 11 teams of officials were searching for the approximately 100 missing residents in places including the small town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart, where about 90 homes were destroyed.
Police charged a 31-year-old man with starting one of the southern fires, near Lake Repulse, by leaving a camp fire unattended last week.
Police did not release his name, and it was not clear what penalty he could face if convicted.
Wildfires are common during the Australian summer. In February 2009, hundreds of fires across Victoria killed 173 people and destroyed more than 2000 homes. Beirut – Fighting raged across Syria today, including a few kilometres from where President Bashar al-Assad had unveiled a ‘‘peace plan’’ that Syrians on both sides said would do nothing to end a 21-month-old uprising.
Hours after Assad addressed cheering loyalists at the Damascus Opera House yesterday in his first public speech since June, clashes erupted near the road to the city’s international airport, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The opposition-linked group said artillery hit the district of Arqaba, 5 kilometres from the Opera House. Fighting continued all night and into today around Damascus, as well as in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, it said.
In central Syria, the towns of Taybet Imam and Halfaya were hit with aerial strikes and artillery, said Abu Faisal, an activist speaking over the internet from Taybet Imam.
Damascus residents said Assad’s speech, which offered no concessions to his foes, was met with celebratory gunfire in pro-Assad neighbourhoods.
But even there, some saw no sign peace was closer: a loyalist resident of southern Damascus reached by internet said the speech was eloquent but empty.
‘‘It sounded more like gloating than making promises,’’ said the woman, who gave only her first name, Aliaa. ‘‘I agree with the ideas but words are really just words until he takes some action. He needs to do something. But even so, everything he suggests now, it is too late, the rebels aren’t going to stop.’’
In the once-affluent district of Mezzeh, scene of several bomb attacks, an Assad critic said people had more pressing concerns than a television speech. ‘‘Here, no-one cares about this speech. They care about food and electricity.’’
Another said Assad’s crackdown would not stop: ‘‘Military operations will continue in full swing, and he is staying.’’
France, the United States, Britain and Turkey said Assad’s speech showed he had lost touch with reality.
Assad’s plan proposed an army ceasefire only after rebels halt their operations and summoned Syrians to mobilise for a war to defend the state against ‘‘a puppet made by the West’’.
His main ally, Iran, defended the speech, saying the plan rejected violence.