News That Affects You - Youth Magazine Staff - May 1983

Youth Magazine Staff

Australia's Killer Fire Storm - Caught in Anorexia's Deadly Web - COUNTRY IN FOCUS: "It was a fiery wall," said Alan Webb of Cockatoo, Australia. "It roared down the hill like a jumbo jet... We watched houses go up, poof, poof, poof. They just went up all at once." In all, 2,000 homes across southeastern Australia were destroyed that Wednesday afternoon, Feb. 16. More than 70 people lost their lives. When strong winds whipped up that morning, smaller brush fires already burning in the tinder-dry, drought-stricken countryside roared into a smoky inferno. Only 24 hours later they had wreaked havoc across 600 miles of Australian coast line from Melbourne to Adelaide. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library