The 69 survivors of one of Australia's worst fires stayed in the homes of the local people of Childers last night, as investigators tried to discover how up to 18 backpackers died in the ruins of a 100-year-old pub.
The authorities refused to confirm the final death toll as darkness fell on the Queensland town 150 miles north of Brisbane, but it is believed there are up to 10 British working holiday-makers among the recovered bodies and missing people.
One farmer said the young people, who descended on the National Trust-listed town to pick fruit and vegetables in the fertile Isis valley, were not like itinerant workers but friends who replaced local young people who went away for jobs and education.
The victims were trapped as flames swept through the Palace Backpackers' Hostel, which was only recently converted from a hotel to cater for the booming trade in young travellers. It was reported that no smoke or fire alarms sounded.
The acting regional fire commissioner, Mr Geoff Wright, said the fire took more than four hours to control. Survivors were rescued from rooftops by hydraulic platforms.
"An alarm system has been installed, and I am aware that the system was approved, and it was a system that was working well," he said despite reports from survivors that they heard no alarms.
The state Premier, Mr Peter Beattie, described the fire as a tragedy of enormous proportions. "There will be no cover-up on any of these matters. Clearly this is a tragedy, an extraordinary tragedy, which we will obviously make sure is fully investigated," he said during a visit to Childers.
The cause of the blaze remained unknown, and the Queensland government has sent a task force to investigate the incident. The arson squad and police have sealed off the now-crumbling heritage building as a crime scene.
Fire investigators said it was a formality that they were treating the blaze as suspicious and they tried to play down rumours in the town that a disgruntled ex-resident of the hostel had threatened to burn it down. A Childers resident said he was told the man had been ejected from the hostel a week ago and came back to threaten those still there.
"They were threatened that he'd come back and burn the place, and the girl we were talking to this morning said he told some of the girls to leave their doors and windows open," the resident said.
Following the disaster, the community last night held a barbecue for backpackers, farm workers and townspeople as well as a memorial service. Many linked arms as the hymn Bind Us Together was played in the Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
Father Pat Dowd told the grief-stricken congregation that they could take comfort in each other's faith. "We know not why some, and not others, were taken," he said. "We need to deal with that individually."
It is believed that up to 10 of the dead were from Britain, and three were Australian. Two were from the Netherlands, while the others were from Spain, Korea and Japan.
Three Irish backpackers who escaped from the fire were being cared for yesterday in emergency accommodation. They were named locally as Ann Farrell, Christina O'Donoghue and Nessy Boyle.
Official tourism research shows 10 per cent of all visitors to Australia each year - equal to 404,300 people in 1999 - are classified as backpackers. Around a quarter come from Britain.
In 1989 six travellers from Austria, Sweden, Denmark and the UK died when fire swept through a hostel in Sydney. A serial arsonist, Gregory Allan Brown, was later convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 years' jail. In 1998 the hostel operators were ordered to pay damages after legal action taken by four survivors.
Reuters adds: Survivors were crying and hugging each other at a public telephone as they tried to contact families overseas. Heaps of flowers were placed as a memorial near the ruined hostel.
Several survivors received hospital treatment for smoke inhalation and other injuries. Others told how they escaped out of windows and fled across the roofs of nearby buildings.
"I heard a tremendous sound of cracking glass. It sounded like somebody was trying to break into the place, and I screamed at the four other girls in my dorm," a British holiday-maker named Emma told Australian radio.
"One of the girls woke up and screamed `Fire!', another tried to open the door but her hand got burnt. We ran out on to the verandah . . . escaped on to the roof of the shop next door. The other people that were getting out were starting to scream."
Another British survivor, Keith O'Brien, said he had trouble getting out of the burning building because of bars on some windows.
"All you could hear was the fire and things crackling, the floor-boards, walls, paint - it was just crazy," said Mr O'Brien, from Wigan in northern England.
"I dragged a Welsh girl out of bed, picked her up and walked out, but you couldn't see your hand in front of your face," Mr O'Brien said. "I went to the window which had bars on it, horizontal and vertical. Pretty much we were trapped. But there was a gap about a foot and a half by a foot," he said.
"I picked her up and put her through the window. I tried to squeeze through the window and the boys [firemen] pulled me through," he said.
An Australian, Phil Vaughan, said the hostel was black with smoke as he fled on his hands and knees from his room. "It was pretty scary for a while. The floor was getting really hot beneath us. It just went up so quick."