The fires burning in Victoria are now considered worse than those of Ash Wednesday (16 February 1983). I don’t have any particular personal connection to it, but it seems remiss to leave this event unmarked.
Meanwhile, fires are also burning in New South Wales, and the floods continue unabated in Queensland. Perth isn’t such a bad place to be, it would seem.
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2 responses to “Ash Saturday”
Interestingly, the recent bushfires aren’t actually ‘Australia’s worst natural disaster’, as has been parroted by a number of media outlets. Cyclone Mahina takes that unfortunate award (although it did occur in 1899, before Federation, which shouldn’t make any difference).
Very true.
The semi-official name for this disaster now seems to be “Black Saturday”. However, we might have to think of a better naming scheme in the future. If predictions by climatologists are borne out, as they have been so far, such extreme conditions will start occurring on a regular basis. (If we believe Andrew Bolt, of course, climate science is all lies, and the real villains are the greens. All of them, without qualification.)