SYDNEY — The worst natural disaster in Australian history has killed at least 200 people, destroyed 7,000 houses and a dozen villages, and left a nation agonizing over the question — why did we let this happen?
Fireball fires, the curse of vast stretches of the Australian "bushland," have again wreaked vengeance on those who try to tame "the bush." Weeks after a record heat wave set off alarms, weary fire fighters are still finding charred bodies in a blackened wasteland the size of many countries.
Devastation in the southern state of Victoria is so vast that losses in property will run into billions of dollars and in social costs that may yet bring down politicians who have ignored warnings of world climate change and local evidence of unsafe "reforms" by Green movement advocates.
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