Victorian Bushfires

Normally people would love to feel summer is coming because summer would have been more fun than any other season. But to some people summer would be the horrible thought for them to prepare its coming.

Victorian bushfires from last week - not sure if some of you know or heard about it from where you are now except to those in Australia. This tradegy has vanished alot of homes and lifes. I have teared couple of times when looking at the images of the scene and people there. And I am not sure how to describe my feeling but just sad even I was spending my holiday at Gold Coast. Whenever I turned on the news in the rented apartment or the tv on the plane, its all about the bushfires. The worst was everytime we watched the news the dead toll surely increased.

This fire has burnt down not only 1 town but several towns.

This fire has burnt down not only few houses but nearly ALL houses are burnt down to the ground - please imagine a town with thousands of houses but left only a couple still standing up.

This fire has burnt down not only few people but nearly 200 people into ashes. This figure is confirmed figure of bodies found. But there are more missing counts now that suvivors do not know where are their other family members are. A family has 6 children who have all been burnt to dead. Survivors ran their life with NOTHING AT ALL but their soul. They lost the houses, a place they called home for years. They lost their family and friends. They lost all the home content. They lost just EVERYTHING because they lost the WHOLE DAMN TOWN !

A pair of old couple who are pensioners came home and found their home has totally gone and they do not have home insurance. Whats gonna be? Where is their future now? Everyday I would think about survivors - how are they going to cope with the total lost from this tradegy. In this most difficult time of their life they do not have their own comfort shelter to deal with it at this moment. Really all I can say about the survivors is that the feeling is not able to describe at all. It is just soooo hard to describe even myself not inside their shoe.

However, on the other hand I could see that Australians are no stranger to the tradegy and they stand strong to each other no matter how bad it is. Thinking back - the monsoon at Thailand, the suicide bomb at Bali, the 911 at NY, the every year bushfire in Australia, the War at Lebanon while many australia borned Lebanese were there to visit family, etc. Australians do really open up their arms to help and be strong when they come to face such tradegy.

The donations haven't been stop and everyone is donating whatever they can donate. Even a child called to helpline and donated $20 from her piggy bank. Volunteers just show up at the scene just to help. Nations are donating clothes, some home contents, food and water. Even a tea spoon would help. Nicole kidman and Keith Urban donated half a million from their family account. The nations are really generous when it comes to such a need in such an economic crisis time. I can't name all of them but I can tell you almost everyone is helping physically, mentally, and financially.

Those firefighters, helpers, voluteers, etc are really really the most amazing humanity to be there to give out their hands. I feel proud for them the Australians being such helpful. I wish I could have done that too.

This morning while I was on my way to market I was listening to a radio station. A lady I am not sure if shes a celebrity or a TV presenter or whatever, anyway, she is one of the volunteer there to help. She went to Victoria all way from Sydney just to help and taking/making calls for the donations, organizing trucks to shifts those donated items, etc. She said on the radio that her bank account left only $200 and not sure how is she going to pay her fuel to come back to Sydney. The radio station called her reason being that she has been really helpful and she deserved something good. Therefore the station gave her a free stay a Crown Plaza this weekend when she comes back to Sydney for 2 nights, then BP will take care of her and the trucks petrol bills, and Telstra will waive her phone bill. She never expect anything when shes there to help. All she wanted to do is just to HELP. But then yeah I agree that she deserve the treat though she is not asking anything back.

To conclude this I would say to all of us who are not part of this tradegy should cherish and appreciate what we have regardless if we are rich or poor. Once again this tradegy has changed my thought that I do not need to be rich (well lately I always wish to be rich just because I want to have a house for my family) as long as my family and friends are safe and sound. My prayers will be with the victims and survivors from all kind of tradegies of everywhere. Last but not the least, if you think you can help please do help.

My purpose of this post is to express my feelings towards this tradegy but when I was writting it I found I couldn't really find the words to describe my feelings let alone how would I describe the victims and survivors' feelings and thoughts. How would you feel if you put yourself into their shoe?