© New South Wales rural fire service / AFP
Some 2,500 firefighters were battling more than 80 blazes in New South Wales.
The heatwave that raised air temperatures in Australia to the highest in the history of the continent's meteorology has led to massive bushfires all across the state of New South Wales.
Australia is being scorched by a massive "heatwave from hell,"
as air temperature across the continent spiked to some 45 degrees Celsius, with the highest, 48.5 C, registered in the town of Tarcoola. As Sputnik reported Friday, the Australian fire service announced a nationwide fire ban and bushfire warning. They were right to do so, but they didn't prevent New South Wales from being engulfed in flame.
According to media reports, there are
more than 80 out of control bushfires ravaging the state at the moment. The largest of those is some 350 km from Sydney. Firefighters are reportedly going door to door urging residents to evacuate. Thankfully, no loss of life or injury has been reported so far, but there are reports of houses, machinery and other property already lost to fire some 370 km east of Sydney.
The Bureau of Meteorology says the fires that started in the central region and are spreading northeast, producing hot, dry winds that also carry a lot of smoke.
"This will produce widespread severe to catastrophic fire conditions in central and northern districts," the bureau said.
According to NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons,
the extremity of fire ratings is "simply off the old conventional scale." He said that current fire conditions are worse than the notorious Black Saturday in 2009, which claimed 173 lives and has been described as one of Australia's worst peacetime disasters.
Comment: Update: Tallest US dam in California might collapse, immediate evacuation ordered - sheriff
The sheriff in Butte County, California has ordered an immediate evacuation of all people below the damaged Oroville dam, which is feared to be in danger of imminent collapse, Reuters reports.
"Immediate evacuation from the low levels of Oroville and areas downstream is ordered. This is NOT A Drill. This is NOT A Drill. This in NOT A Drill," says the statement posted on the Butte County Sheriff's Facebook page.
The statement refers to the Lake Oroville Dam, located 105 km (65 miles) north of Sacramento.
The dam's spillway was "predicted to fail within the next hour," the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) said at around 4:30pm PST Sunday (00:30 GMT Monday).
"DO NOT TRAVEL NORTH TOWARD OROVILLE," the Yuba County Office of Emergency Services said on Facebook, urging evacuees to travel safely in all other directions and help the elderly.
Update (06:56 GMT)
At least 188,000 residents evacuated as water continues to burst through an eroded spillway - prompting fears of massive floods
Officials have ordered at least 188,000 residents near the Oroville Dam with no word yet when evacuations will be lifted because of the uncertainty about the condition of the dam's spillway, said Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea.
Releases through the dam's main, heavily damaged spillway increased to 100,000 cubic feet per second from 55,000 cubic feet per second on Sunday to try to drain Lake Oroville before a failure occurs, said the California Department of Water Resources. Water falling over the Oroville Dam's emergency spillway has stopped as Oroville lake levels dropped low enough.
Lake levels fell for the first time since Saturday and will now allow for inspection of the area. The threat of collapse due to erosion has diminished, said officials at a recent press conference.
On Sunday night, state water authorities used helicopters to drop containers of boulders to fill in the 250-foot-long, 170-foot-wide hole in the main spillway to stabilize the problem.
The cost of repairing a gaping hole in the spillway for the tallest dam in the United States could reach $200million.
Another storm is predicted to hit the area in a few days, which means California's Department of Water Resources will have to continuously monitor inflows into Lake Oroville.