Some Australian wildfire victims reduced to ash

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-17 14:27

MELBOURNE, Australia _ Some of the victims of Australia's deadliest wildfires will likely never be identified because the blazes were so intense their bodies were cremated, a senior police commander said Tuesday.

Flowers are seen at a makeshift memorial in a park for bushfire victims in the town of Kinglake, about 56km (35 miles) northeast of Melbourne February 16, 2009. [Agencies]

The confirmed death toll from the February 7 infernos has reached 189 and officials say it will go higher. Police say they have not been able to give a definitive toll 10 days after the disaster because of the difficulty in finding and identifying remains.

In some cases, all that is left of the victims is ash, police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe told The Associated Press.

"Fire does terrible damage to bodies and the identification process is going to be a lengthy process and it's going to require scientific examination," Walsh said. "In some cases it will be within a few weeks ... in other cases it may well be we're unable to be definitive about the identity."

Where there is only ash, victim identification crews rely on other clues like jewelry found in the ruins to help attach names to the remains, walsh said.

He declined to say how many bodies may still be in the disaster zone. He said police believed they had cleared all bodies from burned open areas, and were now sifting through ruined homes.

Waves of fire raged across more than 1,500 square miles (3,900 square kilometers) on February 7 as extremely hot, dry and windy conditions drove infernos through forests, farms and towns. More than 1,800 homes were destroyed, entire towns razed and some 7,500 people displaced.

Police suspect at least two of the fires were deliberately set, and have charged one man with arson causing death and lighting a wildfire. Brendan Sokaluk, 39, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years on the first charge and 15 years on the second. He is being held in protective custody to prevent revenge attacks against him.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed against electricity supplier SP AusNet alleging that defective power lines caused losses and damage in connection with one of the fires.

SP AusNet, which is 51 percent-owned by Singapore Power Group, which runs a 6.3 billion Australian dollar ($4 billion) gas and power network in southeast Australia that is one of the country's largest, vowed to fight the claim.

A government inquiry into the fire should be concluded first, the company contends.

"SP AusNet believes the claim is both premature and inappropriate," the company said Tuesday in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange. "However, SP AusNet will vigorously defend the claim."

The inquiry, intended to investigate the fire, its causes, the preparedness of residents and emergency services responses, will hand down an initial report on August 17.