The death toll currently still stands at 181 but there are areas yet to be accessed by police and there are known dead waiting to be moved and counted amongst those lost. The end total is still estimated at ‘300’ but it will be some time before anything like a final ‘exact official figure’ can be issued.
There are still 120 people unaccounted for and there is still the possibile loss of tourists and the like who are as yet included in the total who might (or may never) be included in the total.
The damage bill is estimated at @ billion, over 1800 homes have been destroyed with 7,500 made homeless.
Donations and pledges are now running close to $100 million but this is clearly nowhere near the amount needed to help those who can, rebuild their lives.
We’ve been very lucky in the Sydney basin not to have had something similar happen… so I’m hoping lessons are being learned that will prevent *us* from becoming statistics in the future.
The Eclectic Interweb 