Australia fire toll 'to increase'
The number of deaths from wildfires that have already claimed 131 lives in the Australian state of Victoria is likely to rise, officials have warned.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the numbers were "numbing" and warned the nation to prepare for more bad news.
Troops and emergency crews are still battling about 25 fires - two of which are threatening urban areas.
Some towns have been almost completely destroyed by the fires, with arson suspected in some cases.
An area of 3,000 sq km (1,200 sq miles) has been affected.
Firefighters say temperatures have dropped and conditions have improved, allowing them to bring some of the fires under control.
But two fires north-east of Melbourne are still described as major concerns.
One is threatening hamlets near the town of Beechworth, and the other is the Murrindindi Mill fire, which is moving north-eastwards, threatening the township of Taggerty.
'Furnace-like heat' Shocking stories are emerging from survivors in the worst-hit areas.
AUSTRALIAN BUSH FIRES
16 February 1983: 75 dead, 2,300 homes destroyed in "Ash Wednesday" bushfires in Victoria and South Australia
8 January 1969: At least 22 dead, 230 homes lost in rural Victoria
7 February 1967: 62 dead, 1,300 homes destroyed in fires in Hobart, Tasmania
13 January 1939: 71 dead, 700 homes destroyed in "Black Friday" fires in Victoria
February - March 1922: 60 die in Gippsland, eastern Victoria
The BBC's Nick Bryant, at a relief centre in the hamlet of Whittlesea - near the devastated town of Kinglake - said people thought they had hours when in fact they only had minutes to escape the fast advancing flames.
Some described escaping down roads lined with burning trees, while their cars caught fire in the furnace-like heat.
Another man said he siphoned off the water from his vehicle's radiator to try to save the life of a neighbour who had been set alight.
Karen Farthing, a nurse in the emergency department of Victoria hospital, said people had been struggling to get to work because roads were blocked and trees had fallen.
"[Here] it has been very busy. We've been treating firemen with burns, and sadly getting lots of dead on arrivals," she told the BBC News website.
A former Melbourne newsreader, Brian Naylor, and his wife were among those killed on Saturday when the flames took hold in the Kinglake district.
Many residents of fire-ravaged towns are now embroiled in a desperate search for friends and relatives missing since the flames tore through the tiny communities.
'Mass murder'
Mr Rudd has announced an immediate aid package of A$10m ($7m) and said damaged areas would take years to rebuild.
Australia is a tough country to live in - we have had no rain for eight weeks and that is why so much is burning
Alison Blakeley, Melbourne
"That's why we have deployed the army, that's why we will be deploying every possible resource," he said.
Officials believe some of the weekend's fires might have been started deliberately, an accusation Mr Rudd described as "a level of horror that few of us anticipated".
"There are no words to describe it other than mass murder," he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told parliament that 7 February 2009 would be remembered "as one of the darkest days in Australia's history".
Tens of thousands of firefighters have been trying to contain blazes in two other states - New South Wales and South Australia - but the fires there were largely contained or burning away from residential areas.
Australia's head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, has spoken of her "shock and sadness" at the number of deaths, and has praised the extraordinary work of the emergency crews at the scene.
The British and New Zealand governments have both offered to help deal with the fires.
The Australian Red Cross, which has about 400 volunteers working in Victoria, has launched an appeal for donations.
Bush fires are common in Australia, but the current blazes have eclipsed the death toll from what had been the previous worst fire in 1983, when 75 people died on a day that became known as Ash Wednesday.
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