A SEARCH for bodies has begun among the charred ruins of more than 100 homes and other buildings destroyed by wildfires in Australia’s island state of Tasmania.
Acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard said no casualties had yet been reported, but it would take time before officials were certain that no one had died in the blazes that have razed 50,000 acres of forests and farmland across southern Tasmania since Friday.
Police have concerns for about 100 people reported missing.
Mr Tilyard said 11 teams were searching ruins in places including the small town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart, where around 70 homes were destroyed.
“Until we’ve had the opportunity to do all the screening that we need to do at each of those premises, we can’t say for certain that there hasn’t been a human life or more than one human life lost as a result of these fires,” he said.
Prime minister Julia Gillard, who flew to Tasmania, warned that New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, was about to move into a period of extreme heat today.