Death toll rises in wildfires

Disaster teams found charred bodies on roadsides and in crashed cars – grim signs of the futile attempt to flee raging wildfires fed by 60 mph winds, record heat and drought that caught even fire-savvy Australians by surprise.

As the death toll rose today to 173 in Australia’s worst wildfire disaster, suspicions that some of the 400 blazes were caused by arson led police to declare crime scenes in some of the incinerated towns, Victoria police said.

The fires near Melbourne in southeastern Australia destroyed more than 750 homes, left 5,000 people homeless, and burned 1,100 square miles of land, the Victoria Country Fire Service said. Firefighters battled more than a dozen blazes that burned out of control across Victoria state, although conditions were much cooler than Saturday.

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Dozens killed in suicide bombing

A suspected Tamil Tiger suicide bomber blew herself up in northern Sri Lanka on Monday at a processing center for displaced residents fleeing the war zone, killing 28 people and wounding dozens more, the military said.

The attack comes as the rebel group – which experts credit with pioneering the use of suicide vests as part of its three-decade fight for a Tamil homeland – finds itself encircled and increasingly desperate.

The bomber, who has not been identified, spent several hours in line until Sri Lankan soldiers went to check her and other people’s identity, at which point she detonated her vest, said Udaya Nanayakkara, a Sri Lankan military spokesman. He said 20 soldiers were killed and eight civilians.

In recent weeks, the Sri Lankan government has come under pressure from the international community to halt its offensive so an estimated 250,000 civilians trapped by the fighting can move out of the crossfire.

Beijing

Fireworks destroy hotel, one dead

An Olympic-style fireworks display put on by China’s state-run television broadcaster was the cause of a spectacular blaze that destroyed a luxury hotel that was part of the network’s landmark headquarters in Beijing, a fire department spokesman said today.

The fire, which sent off huge plumes of black smoke and showered the ground with embers, left one firefighter dead and a handful of others injured, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The blaze was put out early today after burning for more than five hours.

Luo Yuan, a spokesman for the Beijing fire department, was quoted as saying by Xinhua that fireworks set off to celebrate the Lunar New Year were to blame for the fire that destroyed the unfinished hotel.

He was quoted as saying that China Central Television had hired a fireworks company to ignite several hundred large fireworks in an open area by the nearly completed Mandarin Oriental hotel.