Firefighters battled scores of wildfires raging across south-east Australia on Tuesday as authorities evacuated national parks and warned that blistering temperatures and high winds had led to "catastrophic" conditions in some areas.
No deaths had been reported, although officials in Tasmania were still trying to find about 100 residents who have been missing since a fire tore through the small town of Dunalley, east of the state capital of Hobart, last week, destroying around 90 homes. On Tuesday, police said no bodies were found during preliminary checks of the ruined houses.
"We are shaping up for one of the worst fire danger days on record," the New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, said. "You don't get conditions worse than this. We are at the catastrophic level and clearly in those areas leaving early is your safest option."
Catastrophic threat level is the most severe rating applicable.
Wildfires have razed 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of forests and farmland across southern Tasmania since Friday. In New South Wales (NSW), the country's most populous state, the fires had burned through more than 26,000 hectares (64,000 acres) of land.
Fire officials declared five areas of southern NSW as catastrophic, meaning if fires ignited they could not be controlled, and advised people to evacuate.
"We grabbed the photo albums, suitcases, clothes and jewellery and ended up getting out while we could," said Hallie Fernandez who runs a bed and breakfast motel at Brogo, where an out-of-control bushfire was burning.
Strong winds were hampering efforts to bring the fires under control. Wind gusts more than 62mph were recorded in some parts of the state.
In Australia's biggest city, Sydney, where the temperature hit 41.8C (107F), thousands flocked to the city's beaches, while zookeepers hosed down animals to help them cope with temperatures that tested national records.
The blistering heat also caused a blaze at a nuclear research facility in southern Sydney after cabling overheated in a nearby electricity substation, while thousands of homes in the city's north experienced power outages due to soaring demand.
In the outback city of Broken Hill, the mercury hit 45.1C (113F), while the country's biggest highway between Sydney and Melbourne was cut off by fires in the township of Tarcutta.
"The heat has been so intense that tar on the road has been melting and sticking to my shoes," retired Australian journalist Malcolm Brown said from central NSW.
The record heatwave forced the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to extend its extreme temperature limit, adding new pink and purple colours to forecast maps to allow for temperatures of above 54C (129F).
