New Delhi, Jan 5 (IANS): As Australian authorities battle to tackle the bushfires raging across the country, reports of death of half a billion wild animals in the inferno in New South Wales made the Twitterati discuss the enormity of the situation, with fears that the situation may worsen.

#PrayForAustralia trended on Twitter with 834K tweets.

One user listed the number of people and animals that had perished in the fires. He said that apart from 24 people, 8K koalas, 500M other animals were dead. More than 1,400 homes were destroyed, over 5.5 million hectares burned, and more than 10 million people faced toxic bushfire smoke, he added.

Twitterati posted pictures of animals burnt to death or those rescued by firefighters and others.

A user wrote: "This is just heartbreaking. Please pray for Australia."

One said: "Let's pray together for rain in Australia."

A post read: "Let's pray hard for them. There are not only humans, but also thousands of animals which are affected."

"#PrayForAustralia. Pray for heavy rain over there. God, please show us Your mercy. We realized that we don't take good care of this earth as you want us to do," read one tweet.