50 Pics That Sum Up The Hell On Earth That Is Taking Place In Australia

The Australian bushfires devastated the country and its ecosystem, leaving around half-a-billion animals dead. Meanwhile, around 14 million acres (21,875 square miles) of land is scorched, and hundreds of thousands of Australians have been displaced. It’s a disaster of end-of-the-world proportions.

We’re often told that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure to be seen from space. However, the bushfires in Australia are so extensive that even satellites orbiting the Earth can spot the smoke and flames.

You can donate towards disaster relief and recovery efforts like the Red Cross, St Vincent de Paul Society, and the Trustee for NSW Rural Fire Service & Brigades Donations Fund to make a change and to help Australians affected by the bushfires.

But what are the other effects that the calamity has had? Well, for one, Australians are becoming jaded with their government and showing their anger. 20-year-old Zoey Salucci McDermott refusing to take prime minister Scott Morrison’s hand perfectly encapsulates the country’s anger. “I’ll only shake your hand if you give more funding to the Rural Fire Service,” she said.

Meanwhile, the transport minister in New South Wales, Andrew Constance, told the media that "this is not a bush fire. It's an atomic bomb."

But there is a silver lining to the smoky clouds rising over the Land Down Under: the bushfires are bringing out the best in some Australians. People are showing what they’re worth by helping out their neighbors, rescuing animals, and doing what they can to stop the fires from spreading further.

In fact, the entire world’s reacting to the situation as best as it can. People from half-a-world away are donating what they can to help the people of Australia. While even celebrities are taking steps to secure funding for firefighters.

For instance, comedian Celeste Barber raised 24 million Australian dollarydoos (nearly 17 million US dollars) for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service. The best female tennis player on Earth, Ashleigh Barty, promised to donate her Brisbane International prize money winnings worth 250,000 US dollars. The event starts Monday. US singer Pink and actress Nicole Kidman both pledged 500,000 dollars to Australian fire services.

Bored Panda spoke with Ben Jameson, an Australian living on the Gold Coast, an hour south of Brisbane, about the fires, as well as about the anger that the country's citizens are feeling at the government due to the entire situation.

"There’s a whole lot of division when it comes to whose to blame. Politically. My housemate lost two extended family members in the fires in Wytaliba. Where they lost 80% of the houses in that community. But that’s not the only community to experience such loss," Ben told us. "People are pretty angry, man. Angry at the leadership, because there is none. We have a prime minister who is so disconnected, he goes to the site of where there has been such devastating loss, to do what?! Well the members of the community are there. But does he want to talk to them? No! He literally walks away from anyone that has something to say, anything."

"People are pleading, crying, desperately wanting to know what. Is going to do, where the help is, where is the support, where is the funding for the firefighters, where is the funding and support for the volunteer firefighters... So many of these firefighters are volunteers."

He continued: "You would think in a country such as ours, where we have had bushfires become a part of our identity almost, that we would have invested properly and have adequate equipment and sufficiently trained firefighters and enough of them. But no, instead against all advice from weather services about drought and rainfall conditions, and advice from fire services about the severity of predicted bushfire seasons, the government chose to cut funding to fire services, up to 39 million dollars. But who cares now. The people have been able to muster near that sum themselves. It’s almost as if we don’t need a government. The people are more than capable, and the people know."

"Our government is so disconnected. And so heavily invested in coal and anti-climate change. Because that’s where the Liberal Party funding comes from: pro-coal, and anti-climate change business. It does not serve the Liberal Party well to divest from coal, and to talk about climate change."

Ben said that it's "punishable to protest about the climate" and claims that he lives in a 'V for Vendetta' film. I mean why is it that it is now punishable to protest about the climate? It’s now illegal. How dystopian is this reality? I thought this was the future. But we can’t even talk about climate change. We are well in the grip of a changing climate and the consequences now are irreversible. We are well and truly [effed]. This that your seeing on the news now. This is now going to be the norm. Our bushfires in El Niño years are going to look like this."

"And don’t get me wrong. This won’t be every year. Sure we get bushfires. But there are a lot of serious global changes happening and lots of meteorological drivers. El Niño means we have such low rainfall at the moment. Drought conditions in so many towns lots of towns have run out of water. Cattle are dying, crops are dying. Sure, when La Niña years come around in their 4-ish year cycle we will experience more rain. But again, the severity of that rain will also be increased, our floods are going to get worse, our cyclones are going to get worse."

Ben continued: "We’re a big country so we experience a lot of extreme weather from north, south, east, and west. But there have been flames 80m tall, the wind just blows it and blows it and it’s just unstoppable. The heat from these fires extends so far that firefighters cannot get close enough to put water anywhere near the flame.... it is out of control. They can’t be controlled. You’ve probably gathered that even I’m pretty angry about it."

According to Ben, he feels embarrassed by the Australian government and thinks that its "a joke." "Make no mistake, they do not speak for the majority of the Australian people. At least the people that I know. My friends and family have shown so much support and strength and resilience. Coming together, donating money where possible, helping each other out, going to communities to help clean up. Like, just regular people. Not emergency services or defense force. Just normal people."

"There’s a number floating around that’s you guys have probably seen. A university in Sydney estimates that near 500 million animals have been killed by the fires since September. Half a billion. Half an [effing] billion. What the [eff]? Like so many of our animals, wombats, koalas, crocs, platypus, etc. are endangered or threatened species. I don’t think people, (especially, people in government) understand the scale of that number. I’m not sure if our country's ecosystem and biosphere will recover from this, I really don’t."