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| Australia fires live: 17 missing in Victoria bushfires as tourists told to evacuate NSW south coast – latest | Australia fires live: 17 missing in Victoria bushfires as tourists told to evacuate NSW south coast – latest |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| At least 10 people have died since Christmas Day, and the RFS is urging people to evacuate the New South Wales south coast before dangerous conditions on the weekend. Follow the live news and latest updates today | At least 10 people have died since Christmas Day, and the RFS is urging people to evacuate the New South Wales south coast before dangerous conditions on the weekend. Follow the live news and latest updates today |
| In the past 24 hours, there have been another 11 news fires, mostly in the Upper Murray area, due to lightning strikes. | |
| The isolated communities that are being discussed are in the Ovens Valley and Buckland Valley, we’re told. | |
| “There are some communities and small towns in this area that have one road in and one road out. | |
| “It’s very easy to become an isolated community and particularly with the fire in the landscape that we have now, not only do we not want you to be isolated but we don’t want more Victorians to face some of the conditions that people have faced over these last few days in communities.” | |
| On the question of those in other isolated communities, authorities say they are working as hard as possible to get people out before Saturday’s predicted extreme fire danger. | |
| “The things that are stopping it are things like the conditions and the fire and the landscape,” an official says. “As soon as it is humanly possible, we will get those things to those people. I want to assure the community that we are doing everything we can to support you and we will continue to support you.” | |
| However, it sounds like there is no guarantee they’ll be able to do this. | |
| We’re told that there are still between 3,000-4,000 people at Mallacoota. | |
| A reporter asks what the message is to those who will remain in Mallacoota after tomorrow morning. She notes many people will have to stay there. | |
| “We won’t be able to get everyone out in one go but we are working as hard as we can with our colleagues from the defence force to extricate those that can be extricated,” the police official says. | |
| “We are working very hard to open the roads as soon as we possibly can because if we can extricate people via road that is a great option for us. That takes time, given the huge area that we are talking about that is either burning or burnt.” | |
| The Victoria police official is asked about the confirmed 17 missing people. | |
| “I am not in a position to say where those people are missing from because it is a wide range of locations across Gippsland,” he says. | |
| “I can confirm that, at this stage, we have 17 unaccounted persons. We have one confirmed deceased. That is a terrible tragedy in itself. We are working as hard as we can to focus our efforts on locating those persons unaccounted for. At the moment we ask the community to consider very carefully that we have going fires, very, very hot fires going in these areas.” | |
| ADF brigadier Doug Laidlaw is the commander of the emergency services operations in Victoria. | |
| He says two navy vessels have now arrived off the coast of Mallacoota. They are holding a series of community meetings to work through the evacuation plans. That will include working out who wishes to be relocated and how to prioritise them. | |
| It’s likely the HMAS Choules will say to Westernport tomorrow morning. | |
| A Victoria police official talks about the evacuation efforts in Mallacoota. He says that the focus will be on evacuating people children and the sick and vulnerable. | |
| “We are working very hard across agencies to try to restore some form of communications, we are dropping satellite phones, we are able to vulnerable and isolated communities, we will continue to build efforts around that to reestablish and prioritise those vulnerable communities to start with,” he says. | |
| Authorities in Victoria are currently holding a press conference at the State Control Centre. | |
| A Victorian emergency services official is addressing the media. She says that in the Alpine and East Gippsland areas authorities want people to get out of the area. There is only a small window of opportunity. | |
| “We want them to leave now,” she says. “We have, in the East Gippsland area, a number of isolated communities. In the alpine area where we have tourists and visitors and people residing, we don’t want those people to become isolated like some of the communities that we have down and East Gippsland. | |
| “Again, I ask, please leave now, while we have this opportunity, the window that we have, and move to areas where it is much safer.” | |
| This is Luke Henriques-Gomes again taking over from Amy Remeikis. Thanks for all your great work, Amy. | |
| OK, let’s quickly summarise some of the main points of that press conference – Morrison’s first since 29 December. | |
| Emissions reduction is now being linked to protecting our environment. | |
| Morrison: | |
| But we are not actually changing any of our policies. | |
| Morrison: | |
| Land-clearing policy is still something the government is very interested in at a national level (it announced an inquiry into land clearing, a state responsibility, late last year before parliament broke). | |
| Morrison: | |
| It is still not time to panic, because this is a natural disaster and we have seen those before. | |
| Morrison: | |
| There are more resources which can be deployed, but the NSW government has not asked for more ADF assistance in evacuations, because roads are still open. | |
| Morrison: | |
| Keep calm and stay patient | |
| Morrison: | |
| Scott Morrison gets quite testy with this question: | Scott Morrison gets quite testy with this question: |
| Question: Can you tell Australians about what your government is doing to mitigate the plan for the long-term economic and environmental impact of climate change over the generations as our children grow up? | Question: Can you tell Australians about what your government is doing to mitigate the plan for the long-term economic and environmental impact of climate change over the generations as our children grow up? |
| Morrison: | Morrison: |
| And with that, he ends the press conference and leaves the room. | And with that, he ends the press conference and leaves the room. |
| Scott Morrison finishes that answer with: | Scott Morrison finishes that answer with: |
| He continues: | He continues: |
| On whether or not Scott Morrison is preparing for this to be Australia’s new normal: | On whether or not Scott Morrison is preparing for this to be Australia’s new normal: |