Furious residents whose town was destroyed by bushfires hurled abuse at the Australian prime minister today and accused him of abandoning them by jetting off for a holiday in Hawaii during the crisis.
Scott Morrison was forced to flee in his chauffeur-driven car during a visit to the rural town of Cobargo, in New South Wales, where a father and son died during devastating fires on New Year’s Eve.
Mr Morrison was heavily criticised before Christmas when he took a tropical holiday as bushfires ravaged the country.
One woman refused to shake his hand until the PM offered more support to volunteer firefighters and another yelled: ‘You’re an idiot.’
Meanwhile, a week-long state of emergency has been declared as soaring temperatures up to 46C are expected to spark even more devastating bushfires which have already killed 18 people.
One local refused to shake his hand until the PM offered more support to volunteer firefighters
The PM made a beeline back to his car and was driven away by his security team shortly after arriving
The townspeople told Mr Morrison it felt as though he didn’t care about the town
Cobargo in New South Wales (pictured) has been ravaged by bushfires, turning the once quiet country town into a wasteland
Mr Morrison was depicted enjoying his holiday in Hawaii in a mural by street artist Scott Marsh on a wall in Sydney
A video of Mr Morrison’s embarrassing visit to Cobargo was widely circulated on social media.
He was told he ‘should be ashamed of himself’ while others called him ‘Scum-mo’ for ‘leaving the country to burn’.
One local refused to shake his hand until the PM offered more support to volunteer firefighters.
‘I’m only shaking your hand if you give more funding to our RFS,’ the woman said.
Instead, Mr Morrison picked up her hand and shook it himself, before turning his back on her mid-sentence and moving on to another person.
‘So many people have lost their homes,’ the woman said while holding back tears.
She was consoled by another man as the PM walked away. She shouted after him saying: ‘We need more help.’
Another woman from the town, who brought her pet goat along to the meeting, told Mr Morrison the small town was ‘forgotten’ during the crisis.
‘This is not fair,’ she shouted. ‘We are totally forgotten down here. Every single time this area gets a flood or a fire we get nothing.’
‘If we lived in Sydney or on the North Coast we would be flooded with donations and emergency relief.’
The PM didn’t find any additional support with the rest of the crowd which had gathered on Thursday.
Another shouted: ‘You won’t be getting any votes down here buddy. Who votes Liberal around here? Nobody.’
‘You control the funding, and we were forgotten,’ a woman added.
‘Go on, p*ss off.’
The community is mourning the loss of dairy farmer Patrick Salway, 29, and his father Robert, 63, who died after desperately trying to save their home from the blaze.
Their bodies were found by Mr Salway’s wife Renee who is expecting the couple’s second child.
Mr Morrison later told the ABC he wasn’t ‘surprised people are feeling very raw at the moment.
‘And, that’s why I came today, to be here, to see it for myself; offer what comfort I could.
‘But you can’t always in every circumstance, I think everyone understands that,’ he said.
Meanwhile, the country braced itself for further devastation.
Remote areas are already on the brink of a severe humanitarian crisis caused by contaminated water and low food and fuel supplies with many also cut off from medical help.
Officials are preparing to impose forced evacuations on tourists and locals after thousands who ignored warnings earlier in the week were trapped in coastal towns by the ‘apocalyptic’ fires.
Blistering temperatures and high winds which fanned blazes along the south eastern coast on Wednesday are expected to return by Saturday giving firefighters little chance to get them under control.
Hundreds of fires are still burning across a great swathe of New South Wales and eastern parts of neighbouring Victoria leaving 18 dead and destroying at least 1,200 homes.
Since the bushfire season started 18 people have been killed and 18 more are missing. More than 1,400 homes have been destroyed across the country and 5 million hectares of land burned.
A vast column of smoke rises into the sky in East Gippsland, Victoria, as bushfires continue to ravage south east Australia
Boats are pulled ashore as smoke and wildfires rage behind Lake Conjola, Australia
An emergency vehicle is pictured in East Gippsland, Victoria, as thousands flee and authorities declare a state of emergency
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced a state of emergency today and warned that the devastation was expected to intensify over the weekend.
She said: ‘Given the worsening conditions we know are ahead of us on Saturday and what our state has been through in the last few days, especially New Year’s Eve, we will be declaring a state of emergency from 9am tomorrow that will last seven days.
‘This is to make sure all of our agencies and organisations know that from tomorrow they will be subject to forced evacuations, road closures, road openings and anything else we need to do as a state to keep residents safe and keep property safe.’
She said the extreme measures were necessary to move thousands of tourists still in vulnerable areas to escape before Saturday.
‘We do not take these decisions lightly, but we also want to make sure we take every single precaution to prepare for what could be a horrible day on Saturday,’ Ms Berejiklian added.
‘We know that temperatures will be into the mid 40s in parts of the state and we know there are more fires burning today than we’d like in these milder conditions.’
Meanwhile, the Australian Navy began delivering emergency supplies to isolated coastal areas.
HMAS Choules today docked off the coast of the fire-stricken town of Mallacoota, about 400 miles south of Sydney, where up to 4,000 people remain stranded.
Authorities are considering airlifting more supplies, such as water, toilet paper and basic medical supplies as some roads may be closed for weeks.
On New Year’s Eve residents and tourists fled to Mallacoota’s beach, ready to throw themselves in the water to protect themselves from the flames while the sky turned an apocalyptic red.
There are concerns that the town’s water supply has now become contaminated due to the fires, and residents have been told to boil water until it can be tested.
The fires have generated so much ash and dust that snow on a glacier 1,200 miles away in western New Zealand has been ‘caramelised’.
Photos shared on social media show the normally pristine white slopes of the Franz Josef glacier in Westland Tai Poutini National Park has turned brown.
Dust and ash from the Australian bushfires have ‘caramelised’ the usually pristine snow near Franz Josef glacier in the Westland Tai Poutini National Park, New Zealand
Hundreds of fires are still burning out of control across the country, destroying millions of hectares, killing 18 and leaving 1,200 homes destroyed, with catastrophic 46C weather forecast for Saturday (pictured)
The first recovery boat is pictured in Victoria’s Mallacoota, near the NSW border, on Thursday morning, as officials prepare to evacuate thousands of people from the fire-ravaged up to Batemans Bay
A kangaroo rushes past a burning house in Conjola (pictured) on New Year’s Eve, as officials prepare for a ‘horrible day’ on Saturday, with blistering temperatures and high winds likely to make conditions far worse
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian (pictured) told reporters on Thursday that the government doesn’t take such decisions ‘lightly’ but was putting a place a week-long state of emergency
Tourists and residents have been told to evacuate a 250km stretch of the New South Wales south coast (pictured) as devastating bushfires threaten the area
In one of the biggest peacetime evacuations in Australian history, the NSW Rural Fire Service has told people to flee a vast stretch of the coast from Bateman’s Bay – 175 miles south of Sydney – down to the border with neighbouring state Victoria 155 miles (250km) further south.
A navy landing ship is preparing to evacuate people trapped in Mallacoota, a small town in eastern Victoria in the southern tip of the evacuation zone.
‘If you are planning on visiting the South Coast this weekend, it is not safe. Do not be in the area on Saturday,’ the service said.
NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance called it the ‘largest evacuation of people out of the region ever’ as a queue of cars clogged the highway toward Sydney while thousands fled.
Locals and holidaymakers who decided to stay queued for hours for supplies as panic-buying emptied shelves at supermarkets which were powered by generators as electricity was turned off.
Residents met in the Mallacoota town hall on Thursday afternoon (pictured) for an evacuation briefing by defence force officials, after the town was surrounded by flames
Left: Commanding Officer of HMAS Choules CMDR Scott Houlihan leading a liaison team to meet with community leaders in Mallacoota, Victoria. Right: HMAS Choules travels through smokey haze off the coast of Mallacoota, Victoria on Thursday
HMAS Choules’ enhanced medical team (pictured) disembarks a MRH-90 Taipan maritime support helicopter as the ship prepares to provide support to the communities affected by bushfires
Holidaymakers attempting to flee Batemans Bay before temperatures reach 46C on Saturday were trapped on the roads with long rows of cars seen piled up on Thursday (pictured)
HMAS Choules (pictured leaving Sydney Harbour on Wednesday) will provide relief to 4,000 people who remain stranded in Mallacoota, Victoria
At 10am on Thursday the HMAS Choules and the MV Sycamore, a defence contracted training vessel, arrived off the coast of Mallacoota where 4,000 people are stranded – as troops in helicopters delivered food, water and medicine to isolated towns.
RFS Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers told the ABC officials are desperate to get tourists out before Saturday as strong winds, scorching temperatures and low humidity was forecast.
‘We have so many fires still burning down there … and quite close to communities as well,’ he said.
‘We won’t get containment on those fires before Saturday.’
Major highways leading out of the leave zone, including the Princes Highway heading north towards Sydney between the coastal towns of Milton and Nowra, were reopened on Thursday.
However, many people have struggled to flee as many petrol stations have either run out of fuel or are without power. Queues of cars have been seen at the remaining petrol stations around Batemans Bay that still have stock.
Tankers of 60,000 litres of fuel were brought in overnight to help with the disaster.
An evacuation zone stretching more than 250 kilometers along the New South Wales south coast has been set up as scorching temperatures and more devastating bushfires threaten the area
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said in press conference on Thursday afternoon that 18 people are missing feared dead and one is confirmed dead after fires in the Gippsland region of the state on Wednesday.
Talking about the evacuation effort, he said the HMAS Choules was able to carry roughly 700 passengers at a time.
‘We think around 3,000 tourists and 1,000 locals are there. Not all of those will want to leave, not all can get on the vessel at one time,’ he said.
‘Then there’s a whole lot of planning going on about where that vessel will go, it will be a long trip, potentially a 10 or 12 hour trip to take them to another port and then to provide them with all the support they will need.’
Hundreds of fires are burning out of control across the country in a horrific season which has killed 18 people, razed 1,298 homes and destroyed millions of hectares of land.
This picture taken on December 31, 2019 shows a firefighter hosing down trees and flying embers in an effort to secure nearby houses from bushfires near the town of Nowra on the NSW south coast
Business owner Sally Anne Wilson (left) stands in front of her destroyed shop with her partner Christopher Lee in Cobargo, NSW, Wednesday, January 1, 2020
On Wednesday more than 300 residents were seen queuing outside a Woolworths in Ulladulla, NSW, which has experienced power outages
This satellite image shows the devastation of the fires devastating the coastal town of Batemans Bay, on the NSW south coast, early Wednesday morning as the blaze continues to spread
Water supplies in towns in both Victoria and New South Wales have been affected by the fires.
On Tuesday boil notices were issued for Quaama, Cobargo, Bermagui, Beauty Point, Fairhaven, Wallaga Lake, Wallaga Lake Heights, Wallaga Lake Koori Village and Akolele after disinfection infrastructure was lost.
Power was restored to 11,000 homes in New South Wales’ South Coast on Wednesday but more than 30,000 people are still without electricity or internet.
People who had suffered horrific burns or were injured in the fires were forced to wait for more than 24 hours until they were rescued by the Navy as roads remain closed.
Since Monday, eight have been killed and four are missing feared dead in the fires in NSW and Victoria.
On Wednesday a 42-year-old man was rescued by a Navy helicopter from Cadgee, south of Moruya, and a 49-year-old woman and 23-year-old woman were rescued from Nowra.
Traffic has been barely moving as hundreds flee Batemans Bay in New South Wales before temperatures skyrocket on Saturday
On Wednesday more than 300 residents were seen queuing outside a Woolworths in Ulladulla, a coastal town north of Batemans Bay, which has experienced power outages.
Store manager Craig Scott said the supermarket was running on a recently purchased generator – but it was close to running out of fuel.
He was hoping local boat owners would share their diesel to ensure essential food and milk wouldn’t spoil.
‘The power’s out in town, but we decided to open the store just for necessities, so people can get nappies, baby food, all that sort of stuff,’ he said.
In the town of Tura Beach there were long queues of people waiting to fill up on petrol and to get supplies at the supermarket.
One woman called Kerry told the ABC: ‘A car queue of 50 waiting to get petrol and people in Woolworths clearing the shelves … apocalyptic.’
Ulladulla Woolworths opened its doors on Wednesday to give locals unable to leave the chance to stock up on supplies
A firefighter hosing down trees and flying embers in an effort to secure nearby houses in Nowra, NSW, on Tuesday
NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Gary Worboys asked for patience as police and utility providers tried their best to get power and telecom services restored down the south coast.
‘We have to make sure that when we restart the power, we do that with safety and confidence, that it will remain on. People need to understand this is not a simple or easy task.’
Mr Fitzsimmons said the fires would dominate a vast area from the south eastern corner of NSW. Tourists were warned to get out while they still could.
Eight people have died in bushfires since Monday, seven in New South Wales and one in Victoria.
Pictured: People lining up to use a public telephone booth after telephone reception was cut across the south coast of NSW
NSW Police confirmed a total of seven people have been killed and two are unaccounted for in the South Coast bushfires since Monday.
The deaths include dairy farmer Patrick Salway, 29, and his father Robert, 63, who died trying to save their property in Cobargo, near Bega.
Young father and volunteer firefighter Samuel McPaul, 28, was also among those confirmed dead after he was killed by a fire tornado.
A 70-year-old man was found dead outside a home near Lake Conjola on Tuesday night, while another man’s body was found in a burnt vehicle at Yatte Yattah Wednesday morning.
The body of a man was found in a vehicle on Wandra Road at Sussex Inlet about 11.30am Wednesday but is yet to be formally identified, while a seventh body was found outside a home Coolagolite, about 10km east of Cobargo, on Wednesday.
Beloved great-grandfather Mick Roberts, 67, from Buchan, in East Gippsland, was found dead at his home on Wednesday morning.
Meanwhile, a 72-year-old man is unaccounted for at Belowra, 50km north-west of Cobargo.
An 81-year-old woman who was missing from Conjola Park was found alive on Wednesday.
Destroyed buildings are seen in Cobargo, NSW, Wednesday, January 1, 202. Several bushfire-ravaged communities in NSW have greeted the new year under immediate threat
Pictured: Food truck in Narooma offering free food to locals who have been displaced or affected in the bushfire catastrophe
Frightening satellite images from January 1 showed the horrifying extent of the bushfires on the NSW South Coast
Smoke and flames are seen rising from burning trees as bushfires hit the bushland surrounding the small town of Nowr