Australian authorities tell 250,000 people to evacuate due to increased threat of fires

15:30, 10.01.2020

Australian authorities urged nearly a quarter of a million people to evacuate their homes on Friday and prepared military backup as soaring temperatures and erratic winds fanned bushfires across the east coast.

“If you can get out, you should get out, you shouldn’t be in the remote and forested parts of our State,” Andrew Crisp, emergency management commissioner for the state of Victoria, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Emergency alert text messages were sent to 240,000 people in Victoria state alone, telling them to leave, Crisp said. People in high-risk regions in New South Wales and South Australia states were also urged to think about leaving, but authorities had not provided numbers.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had given instructions to the military so “that they are to stand ready to move and support immediately.”

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