Amazing Australian Disasters
Australia has, like any country, had a few disasters
over the years. Below is a selection of them..
Ash Wednesday
On this fateful Wednesday on 26 february 1983, fires broke out
both in the Adelaide Hills and the Dandenongs near Melbourne. They
burnt for four days and killed at least 72 people and destroyed
more than a 1000 houses.
Cyclone Larry
Before and after shots, taken from the verandah
of Mission Beach Sanctuary
In March 2006 cyclone Larry ripped through far north Queensland,
it was the most powerful cyclone in nearly a century and damaged
thousands of buildings and devastated farms. 80% of Australia's
banana crops were wiped out causing banana prices to rise up to
$12.- a kg. and thousands of acres of sugar cane fields were flattened.
The damage bill was estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars
but, thanks to thousands of residents having been evacuated ahead
of the storm, no one was killed and only some people have reported
to hospital suffering injuries including cuts and abrasions.
The town of Innisfail, south of Cairns, copped the worst of it when
290km/h winds tore roofs from buildings and uprooted trees, and
also the holiday town of Mission Beach was hit hard, it took several
days for the main road in to Mission Beach to be re-opened so for
quite a while there was no access or electricity.
This cyclone also went unusually far inland, normall cyclones weaken
as soon as they hit land, and considerable damage was also caused
in the Atherton Tablelands west of Cairns, some famous landmarks
like the Giant Red Cedar and the Peeramon Pub were blown over, while
the city of Cairns got off fairly light in comparison to all the
widespread devastation.
Soon after the cylcone wandering cassowaries were reported who had
to come out of the devastated rainforests to look for food.
Usually cyclones also bring lots of rain but this time that was
not the case, Paul from the Mission Beach Sanctuary reported Sunday
afternoon to be a beautiful sunny day, although later in the week
it started pouring down which hampered relief efforts and blocked
the highway needed by trucks to bring supplies..
Help flooded in from all directions, even the tax office offered
victims of Cyclone Larry extra time to pay debts without charging
interest.
Pervan, the local mayor, was interviewed on radio and made the unique
public appeal to "send up a truckload of piss so we can all
get f#@#!ng drunk", this was only one of the reasons the mayor
got sacked by the Department of Local Government in the following
year.
Cyclone Tracy
On Christmas Day 1974 the city of Darwin was hit by cyclone Tracy.
Normally people are given warnings a long time before a cyclone
hits and people get prepared for it but most of the Darwin residents
were too busy celebrating Christmas ( with the usual alcohol that
Darwin was infamous for) so when the full force of Tracy hit most
people were taken by surprise. Countless houses were totally destroyed,
( out of 11200 houses only 400 survived intact), 25 ships sunk in
the harbour, 35 planes destroyed at the airport and all communications
were cut so the rest of the country didn't even know until a radio-amateur
dug some gear out of his cellar and contacted someone in Sydney
after which the rescue operation swung into action. As many people
as possible were immediately evacuated on some record breaking flights
to Adelaide,( planes do not usually have passengers sitting in the
aisles). The death toll of 66 was not as high as one would expect
considering the devastation though there are people that claim lots
of bodies were dumped in massgraves and not counted. Insurance companies
ended up paying out over $700 million.
In the Darwin Museum in the suburb of Fannie Bay there is a big
display on Tracy where you can get some idea of the impact of this
event, there are photographs of the damage like steel powerpoles
twisted like cork screws and someone found his fridge a mile down
the road embedded in a watertank several metres off the ground.
There is also a sound room where you can get to experience what
a cyclone sounds like, a strong warning is posted on the door for
people that have actually been through the cyclone to think twice
about going in there.
Click here
for some chilling eye-witness accounts of cyclone Tracy.
Canberra fires
On January 18, 2003,a firestorm pushed beyond containment lines
and into the suburbs of the national capital and killed four people
and destroyed 507 houses.
Sarah Jones, who lives on the outskirts of the city, described how
she saw fire jumping from one hill to another through the sky, though
the hills were several kilometres apart! Even houses right in the
city went up in flames from burning debris falling from the sky
and fire creeping in along nature strips.
Granville rail crash
In january 1977 Australia had its worst ever rail crash when at
Granville, Sydney, 83 people died when a train hit a concrete bridge.
Lockhart River plane crash
Lockhart River is an Aboriginal community on Cape York, a bit north
of Cooktown, and is a refuelling stop for the small planes that
ferry locals and workers around the vast remote Cape York peninsula.
On 7 May 2005 this became the site for Australia's worst air disaster
since 1960.
On this day a Fairchild Metroliner twin-engined aircraft, operated
by Aero-Tropics, slammed into a tree covered 500m high hill about
11km north west of the Lockhart River airport. The plane was flying
through cloud and had approached the airport too low, and in a huge
fire ball all 15 people aboard were killed instantly.
It was a tragedy that hit hard around Cape York peninsula as almost
everyone knew at least one of the victims.
Investigations by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau revealed
that there was nothing on the cockpit voice recorder (that had malfunctioned)
to suggest there had been a problem, but they said the pilot should
have heard a ground proximity warning alert before the accident.
This was the Australia's worst air disaster since 29 people were
killed in June 1960 on a flight from Brisbane to Mackay when a Fokker
Friendship crashed into the sea 15km from its destination.
Melbourne
On February 10th, 1964, the destroyer HMAS Voyager sunk after being
cut in two by the aircraft carrier Melbourne in a collision off
the coast of Jervis Bay. 82 sailors died in the disaster. The Melbourne
slipped up again five years later when it collided with a U.S. destroyer
in the South China Sea and 74 American sailors were killed.
Newcastle earth quake
Earth quakes are unusual in Australia as it is a very old continent
and the landmass has well and truly settled by now but on 28 december
1989 the town of Newcastle, New South Wales, was rocked by and earth
quake that killed 13 people and made over 15000 homeless. Nobody
had ever lost his life in Australia in an earth quake before. Insurance
companies had to pay out $950 million and many started leaving earth
quake cover out of the policy after that, before they had all generously
included it as the chance of it happening was deemed to be nil.
N.T. Cannonball Run
This was meant to be an annual event and was the brain
child of the Northern Territory's Chief Minister at the time who
was a bit of a racing fanatic.
The race was held on the Stuart Highway from Darwin to Ayers Rock
and back, a distance of around 4000 km. and attracted well off racing
enthusiasts from all over the world with their expensive machines.
Unfortunately in the very first race a Japanese driver lost control
of his car and ploughed into some racing officials next to the highway
and four people were killed, the Japanese Ferrari driver and his
co-driver, and two NT men. The race was never held again.
Sydney to Hobart yacht race 1998
Chaotic scenes as boats storm across Sydney Harbour
The annual Sydney to Hobart yacht race starts in Sydney on 26 December
and runs for 630 nautical miles, roundabout 1200 km., to the Tasmanian
capital Hobart. The start is always spectacular and risky as hundreds
of other boats steam along to farewell the racing yachts resulting
in many near misses or the occasional collision.
In 1998 the race was hit by a severe storm and out of the 115 boats,
five sank, 66 retired, 55 crewmembers had to be rescued and 6 drowned.
Only hours after the start of the race the Bureau of Meteorology
(BOM) issued a storm warning, but received no answer when phoning
the race committee. They then faxed a warning to the yacht club,
which took some time to get through to the organizers. They were
also slow to act again to pass the warning on and communicate the
severity of the storm, even when the first reports of 75 knot winds
started arriving.
Snowy Mountains landslide
Eighteen people died early one morning july 1997 when the Australian
Alpine ski resort of Thredbo was rudely awoken by a land slide that
had crushed 2 ski lodges, Carinya with 1 inhabitant and Bimbadeen
with 18 residents. Rescue crews faced a near impossible task to
try and find survivors in the rubble as soon as possible but the
risk of further landslides and the fear of crushing survivors made
it too risky to use havy equipment. After 53 hours some specialized
equipment detected some movement and only survivor Stuart Diver
was succesfully rescued 12 hours later.
Waterfall train crash
Seven people, including train driver Herman Zeides, were killed
and 19 injured when a Tangara train bound for Port Kembla ran off
the rails speeding too fast through a bend near Sydney on January
31 2003 when the driver suffered a heart attack at the controls
and the emergency deadman brake failed. The accident inquiry found
that StateRail managers had known since 1988 that the Tangara's
deadman emergency brake was not fail-safe but had failed to rectify
it and two senior rail executives were sacked without any payout.
Do you know of, or have survived, an Australian
disaster? Then tell us!
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