Australia Begins Inquiry Into Deadly Hostel Blaze

Australian police said they would start to remove the charred remains today of the backpackers who died in a hostel fire in central Queensland, in order to learn the final death toll in the blaze.

According to authorities, the fire killed 15 people--most of them foreign tourists--left three unaccounted for and injured at least 10.

Of those missing and the ones killed, police said, 10 were from the United Kingdom, three from Australia, two from the Netherlands, and one each from Spain, Japan and South Korea.

Swamped with calls from anxious parents, police asked all foreign backpackers in Australia to telephone their families.

Police said they could not be sure of the final toll until forensic scientists had investigated the burnt-out shell of the 100-year-old building.

“There may have been people over in that building who weren’t in the register,” acting Chief Supt. Ken Benjamin said at a news conference.

Benjamin said police had found one victim on the bottom level of the building where the fire is thought to have started. Authorities expect to find other victims at the rear of the top level of the hostel.

He said the investigation, called Operation Birch, would also involve checking allegations that the fire was the result of arson.

“We are treating this as we would any incident like this--as very suspicious,” Benjamin said.

The hostel, a pub refitted with dormitory-style rooms 18 months ago, drew a young crowd--mostly tourists in their late teens to early 20s who stop in Childers to earn money in the fields before moving on to more scenic areas of Australia. Farmers in the town of 1,500 rely on the hundreds of backpackers to harvest their snow peas, zucchinis, tomatoes and avocados.

On Friday night, the small farming community in Childers rallied around survivors with offers of food packages, clothing and shopping vouchers.

Benjamin said a complete list of survivors would be released today to consulates and through police hotlines.

Seventy survivors Friday described how they squeezed out of barred windows and fled across tin roofs of nearby shops.

The extent of the tragedy hit home today as survivors of the fire placed flowers on a park bench across from the hostel, prayed with a chaplain, held each other and wept.

A number of bouquets were written in Dutch to a friend nicknamed “the banana man,” and another bouquet from the people of Childers read, “You touched our lives in a small but never forgotten way.”