12:56pm UK, Monday February 09, 2009

Australian officials have warned the bushfire disaster will get worse before it gets better, as the death toll from the blazes continues to climb.

The bushfires death toll is expected to rise as charred buildings are searched

Towns have been wiped out and many people are still missing after bushfires raged through southeastern Australia, burning people in their homes and cars.

The official number of dead has reached 135 and continues to rise as the charred ruins of hundreds of buildings are searched.

Channel 9 News Australia said the death toll could reach 200 with countless others missing and unaccounted for.

In the worst-hit state of Victoria, Premier John Brumby said there was still a number of fires burning.

“There is a huge effort to get them under control,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“Tragically, we will have more deaths later this week.”

Police believe some of the bushfires – the deadliest in Australia’s history – were started deliberately.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said it constituted “mass murder”.

“This is of a level of horror that few of us anticipated. There are no words to describe it other than mass murder,” he said.

“These numbers (dead) are numbing… and I fear they will rise further.”

Searing temperatures and wind blasts have fanned dozens of bushfire across three states – Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.

More than 750 homes were destroyed in Victoria alone as the blazes burned some 850 square miles of land.

Molten metal from burnt cars pours across the ground

Many people died huddled in their homes or in cars trying to flee the inferno, while some managed to escape by diving into pools or hiding in their cellars.

The town of Marysville and several hamlets in the Kinglake district, both about 50 miles north of Melbourne, were utterly devastated.

In Whittlesea, one of the burnt out settlements, shocked residents wandered the streets, some crying, searching for loved ones still missing.

“The last anyone saw of them, the kids were running in the house, they were blocked in the house,” cried resident Sam Gents, who had not heard from his wife and three young children since an inferno swept through Kinglake.

He said he knew where to look for his missing family but was unable to access the area after authorities sealed off Kinglake as bodies were being recovered.

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Sky News Australia’s David Speers, reporting from Whittlesea in Victoria, said: “I was speaking to many residents today who evacuated from a town on Saturday afternoon which was absolutely wiped out.

“It was a small community of 100 houses – now only a few remain. It is like a bomb had hit the town.

“It is a difficult situation in trying to assess where they should go.

“None of them want to go too far from the towns. They even want to be able to go back and see if there is anything they can salvage – and also to get some closure.

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“It is one thing to be told your house has been burned down, but many people need to see this with their own eyes.”

Handwritten notes pinned to a board in the Whittlesea evacuation centre told the same sad story, with desperate pleas from people for their missing family and friends to contact them.

In a statement issued by Buckingham Palace, the Queen expressed her grief at the loss of so many lives.

“I send my heartfelt condolences to the families of all those who have died and my deep sympathy to the many who have lost their homes in this disaster on so dreadful an occasion as this for Australia,” she said.

The Queen also paid tribute to the “extraordinary” efforts of the emergency services and expressed her “renewed admiration for all that they are doing”.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also offered his sympathies to the Australian people, saying Britain stood ready to provide any assistance it could.