Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/death-toll-grows-in-australian-wildfires Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The death toll has risen in Australia's worst wildfire disaster in history, and the extremely fast-moving fires caught many off-guard. Independent Television News correspondent Libby Weiner reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: On the Australia tragedy, where 160 people are feared dead in fires in the southeast part of the country near Melbourne. Libby Weiner of Independent Television News begins our coverage. LIBBY WEINER: Fast and ferocious, in a matter of minutes, fire had torn the heart out of the state of Victoria. In this hot, dry land, bushfires are common, but the devastation this weekend was unlike anything they'd seen before. AUSTRALIAN MAN: You can't imagine what intensity and it's taking the air out of your lungs. That was the scary thing. The heat, you could tolerate, but we couldn't breathe. That was the worst thing.