Bushfires have killed at least 93 people, destroyed hundreds of houses and engulfed¹ entire towns in Australia. The fires have occurred mostly in Victoria state, police said yesterday.

The country's worst bushfires have killed people trying to flee in cars or huddled² in homes.

Fires tore through several rural towns north of Melbourne on Saturday night, destroying everything in their path. One family was forced to dive into a farm reservoir to survive; others cowered³ in a community shed while firefighters stood between them and a wall of flames.

"It rained fire," said one survivor⁴, showing his singed⁵ shirt. "We hid in the olive grove⁶ and watched our house burn."

The remains⁷ of charred⁸ cars littered the smoldering⁹ towns yesterday. Some were crumbled¹⁰ heaps after crashing into each other as their drivers frantically¹¹ tried to escape the fires.

Police said the death toll¹² could continue to rise because at least 20 people with serious burns are in hospital and the ruins of many houses are still to be searched. Thousands of firefighters are still battling scores of fires in Victoria and New South Wales states.

"We are just picking them up (the bodies) as we go through," a police spokesman said.

The previous worst bushfire tragedy was in 1983 when 75 people were killed in the "Ash Wednesday" wild blaze.

The Australian government has put the army on standby and set up emergency relief funds. But it faces some pressure from Greens lawmakers who have been urging it to toughen its climate-change policy to reduce the risk of more such disasters in summer.

Survivors¹³ said the Victorian inferno¹⁴ was as high as four stories, with blazes racing¹⁵ across the land like speeding trains. "It went through like a bullet," Darren Webb-Johnson, a resident of the small rural town of Kinglake, told Sky TV.

"The service station went, the take-away store across the road went, cylinders¹⁶ (exploded) left, right and center, and 80 percent of the town was razed¹⁷."

State broadcaster ABC showed pictures of the razed small town of Marysville. "Hell and its fury have visited the good people of Victoria," Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said during a tour of the burnt-out region. "The nation grieves with Victoria."