Great Bush Stories by Graham Seal

Author:Graham Seal [Graham Seal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2018-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

By this time more than forty people were declared dead of heatstroke in Bourke alone. Hospital wards began to fill with victims of sunstroke or fever. Rivers stopped running, crops withered and stock perished in vast numbers and as the water supplies ran low the risk of typhoid increased. Farmers and graziers and their stock and crops suffered badly: ‘the feed being withered up, tanks dry, and horses, sheep, and cattle dying by hundreds, and many settlers’ homes have been destroyed by the bush fires. Never in the history of New South Wales has such a continuance of fierce heat been known.’

Cities and towns also suffered, of course, but the effects of the heatwave were more savage in the bush. Towns and regions continued to report oppressive and sometimes deadly heat until temperatures began to ease in February.

Nobody knew what caused the scorching weather of 1896. It was not global warming, but the inferno was a frightening glimpse of what summer in Australia might look like if climate science turns out to be correct. The relative severity of the event and the accuracy of temperature measurement at the time has been the source of some controversy in the debate over climate change. While it seems certain that there have been warmer years, the great heat of ’96 was one of the most disastrous in terms of lives lost and the amount of crops and stock destroyed.

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