"This is why it made it so hard for us [to search] because there was no intelligence to suggest why he left or where he went," Sgt Danny Brown said on Tuesday, according to a report by the Herald Sun.
"His behaviour took everyone by surprise. By all accounts he was a very fit, physically and mentally."
Officers said the search was difficult because of the thick vegetation, rocky clifftops and deep coastal waters in the region.
Police said they would prepare a report for the coroner.
"This is why it made it so hard for us [to search] because there was no intelligence to suggest why he left or where he went," Sgt Danny Brown said on Tuesday, according to a report by the Herald Sun.
"His behaviour took everyone by surprise. By all accounts he was a very fit, physically and mentally."
Officers said the search was difficult because of the thick vegetation, rocky clifftops and deep coastal waters in the region.
Police said they would prepare a report for the coroner.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says allegations of a plot to plant a Chinese spy in Canberra's parliament are "deeply disturbing".
The allegations - first aired by local network Nine - assert that a suspected Chinese espionage ring approached a Chinese-Australian man to run as an MP.
In a rare public statement, the nation's domestic spy agency has confirmed it is investigating the allegations and taking them seriously.
China is yet to respond to the claims.
Mr Morrison said he found the reports troubling but warned against "leaping to conclusions".
They allegedly offered him A$1m (£520,000; $680,000) to fund his run for a Melbourne seat as a candidate for the ruling Liberal Party, of which Mr Zhao was already a member.
Mr Wang also told 60 Minutes that he was aware of several Chinese spies operating in Australia and attempting to influence politics.
Chinese officials have dismissed Mr Wang's claim, and say that he is an unemployed fugitive who was convicted of fraud before fleeing his homeland on a fake passport.
What has been the response?
In a statement, Asio director-general Mike Burgess said: "Australians can be reassured that Asio was previously aware of matters that have been reported today, and has been actively investigating them."
He said he would not comment further in line with "long-standing practice", but added: "Hostile foreign intelligence activity continues to pose a real threat to our nation and its security."
Mr Morrison said his government was determined to keep Australians "free and safe", but urged people not to draw conclusions while an investigation took place.
"Australia is not naive to the threats that it faces more broadly," he told reporters on Monday
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MP Andrew Hastie, who heads the parliament's intelligence and security committee, told 60 Minutes he had been aware of the "very, very concerning" allegations for months.
"[It is] like something out of a spy novel happening in Melbourne with impunity," he said.
There is an ongoing debate about Chinese influence in Australian politics and society.
Some politicians have accused Beijing of trying to infiltrate Canberra through donations and other means. Others, however, believe the allegations are fuelling xenophobia and putting at risk the nation's prosperity because China is Australia's largest trading partner.
At the time, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull acknowledged "disturbing reports about Chinese influence" - an assertion that has been consistently denied by Beijing, which has sometimes accused Australia of having a "Cold War mentality".
Earlier this year, a newly elected Chinese-Australian MP, Gladys Liu, faced intense scrutiny after her past links to Beijing-associated groups were revealed by Australian media. She strongly denied having any divided loyalties, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison asserted she had been the victim of a "smear" campaign.
A man claiming to be a Chinese spy has applied for asylum in Australia, media reports say.
Wang "William" Liqiang has reportedly given authorities information about operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia, and says he was "personally involved" in espionage work.
He is now with his wife and child in Sydney, and fears he will be killed if he goes home.
Mr Wang's identity and allegations remain unconfirmed.
But Australia's Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has told reporters Mr Wang's case is "now in the hands of the appropriate law enforcement agencies", adding that his accusations are "very disturbing".
Mr Wang's extraordinary allegations first appeared in Australian media outlets on Saturday. His full television interview will be broadcast Sunday night on the 60 Minutes programme.
He reportedly gave a 17-page statement to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in October, detailing his work as well as the names of senior intelligence officials and how they run their operations.
After growing worries about his work, Mr Wang travelled to Australia where his wife was studying and living with their new born son. He is now in an undisclosed location in Sydney on a tourist visa and has applied for asylum, fearing for his safety if he returns to China.
"Once I go back, I will be dead," he said in a clip of the 60 Minutes interview.
What does Mr Wang claim to know about?
He says his own work included infiltrating Taiwan with a fake South Korean passport to influence elections there, and working with a listed company in Hong Kong which was trying to counter the pro-democracy movement in the territory.
As bushfires continue to rage in nearly every corner of Australia, an entirely different sort of nightmare has afflicted the outback town of Mildura in the state of Victoria.
On Thursday, just as the sun was reaching its peak, hot, high and heavy winds in the north-west of the state of Victoria were doing the same.
Amid 40-degree heat (104 degrees Fahrenheit) and warnings of disastrous wildfires, a red "wall of dust" barrelled down on the rural city and swallowed it whole.
Australia: historical: a dust storm approaching Mildura in May 2019 • 📹 via Charlie Bucket pic.twitter.com/fA5MJrWJb2
Soon enough, the sky began to glow orange, and the whirling dust and grit grew so thick, it settled like a fiery fog on the city's residents, gathering in their eyes and mouths when they ventured out in the 40 kilometre/hour winds (24 mph).
As winds began to shift, the Bureau of Meteorology in Victoria reported an 8 degree temperature drop in 30 minutes. Nevertheless, the storm remained so dense, visibility at the airport fell from 4 km to just less than 500 metres (540 yards).
A senior forecaster for the bureau, Tom Delamotte, told 7 News Australia that dust storms are not uncommon in Mildura, and given how hot and dry the region has been, this wasn't entirely unexpected.
"Anytime that we have had windy conditions over the past month or two they have seen dust storms," Delamotte says, "and given that today is very windy we are seeing quite a lot of dust picked up in the air."
Skies turned an eerie shade of orange as Mildura in southeast Australia was blanketed by a dust storm today. 68 mph winds whipped up dust in the drought-stricken region of Victoria, where power to more than 100,000 homes was knocked out after tree branches fell on the cables. pic.twitter.com/LxWPsIb9pp
This is my reality today, another dust storm in Mildura, and a fire on our outskirts pic.twitter.com/yP5jUxI2K6
— 💧Narelle Hahn-Smith💦🐯#LoudAustralian (@AuntyRelle) November 21, 2019
Even still, the frequency of these storms rings of a bigger issue. As climate change drives ever hotter and drier weather in the great south land, residents are having to get used to recurrent storms just like this one.
Mildura local Sophie Appleby toldThe Guardian she's now learned that the worst has arrived when the birds stop singing.
"I have been here for 10 years and have never experienced anything like this," Appleby says.
"We used to have a dust storm a year, this is now a weekly basis. At its worst I couldn't see across the road. This time the heat, because it is 40 °C, coupled with the dust just made it unliveable. You couldn't go outside."
Heat and winds are threatening to widen Australia's bushfire crisis, with three states warned to expect their worst conditions of the season so far.
Soaring temperatures in South Australia prompted "catastrophic" alerts - the highest danger rating - on Wednesday.
Parts of Victoria have been issued the same warning for Thursday, while the threat in Tasmania is also increasing.
Six people have died since last month in massive bushfires which are burning elsewhere in the country.
Those blazes - in New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland - have destroyed more than 500 houses and prompted debates on the impacts of drought and climate change.
Fires in South Australia (SA) prompted emergency warnings on Wednesday as temperatures neared 45C (113F) in parts of the state, exacerbated by winds of up to 90km/h (55mph).
Officials switched off electricity to about 10,000 homes and businesses to reduce the risk of new fires. Such blazes are most commonly sparked by winds bringing down power lines.
"All areas of the state are in danger today, with the potential for fires which do start to be uncontrollable by fire crews," a Country Fire Service spokeswoman told the BBC.
The southern state has endured its driest first nine months of any year on record, said Australia's Bureau of Meteorology. No significant rainfall is forecast for the coming months.
Officials in Victoria have issued a "code red" - its equivalent of a catastrophic warning - for the state's north, warning residents there to evacuate immediately.
Tasmania's threat level of "severe" - its most dangerous for the season - meant that any fire there would be difficult to control, officials said.
In NSW and Queensland, officials warned that forecast weather had the potential to intensify existing blazes. Western Australia was also issued catastrophic alerts in the past week.
Climate change influence
Scientists and experts say that Australia's fire season has grown longer and more intense due to climate change.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, climate change had led to an increase in extreme heat events and raised the severity of other natural disasters, such as drought.
Last year the nation experienced its warmest summer on record. Official figures also show 2018 and 2017 were Australia's third and fourth-hottest years on record respectively.
As the fires rage on, Australia's conservative government has been criticised over its efforts to address climate change. Last year, a UN report said the nation was falling short of its Paris climate agreement commitments to cut CO2 emissions.
We’ve all been there and know how much it hurts to see your car being destroyed by a hail storm. No matter if we are talking about an expensive project car or for your daily driver, it’s never a pleasant sight – and we can only imagine the feelings going through this young lady’s head while watching her poor Ford Fiesta being hammered by a massive hail storm just yesterday.
On Sunday afternoon, the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, was hit by a hail “the size of a cricket ball,” as reported by 7news, resulting in extensive damage to hundreds of cars and homes. The video above captures the disaster and the minutes after that with the young lady walking us around her car and describing the damage done by the storm.
Poor Aussies:
“My car was the worst out of all of them. Unfortunately, it couldn’t fit in the garage. This side is probably the worst of them all, […] and then the back and the roof of the car are pretty bad as well, all smashed,” Lisa Thomas explains.
According to 7news, the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland had received 1,250 vehicle claims and 298 home claims by Monday afternoon local time. It is believed that hundreds, if not thousands, more vehicles are also affected. Almost 20,000 houses were without power after the storm.
"The damage from this storm has been extensive," RACQ spokeswoman Lucinda Ross commented. "We’ve seen holes in windscreens and paintwork as well as damage to patios and roofs of homes."
The costs of the damage done by the massive hail storm are not known at the moment and it is not clear if they will rival the $1.39 billion in claims after a superstorm ripped up Brisbane in 2014.
