The Melbourne Snap ⚡- Monday 6 January
Terrible weekend in Victoria's waters, take-off drama at airport, snake found in suitcase plus woman wakes up to intruder in her home and starts filming them.
G’day and welcome back to The Melbourne Snap. After a flurry of support over the weekend (thank you) the newsletter has surpassed 200 subscribers. If you’re new here, I write The Snap early every weekday morning to give you news about Melbourne without pop-up ads, paywalls or bias. Here’s Monday’s edition.
✈️ An Eithad plane at Melbourne airport with 289 passengers on board was forced to abort take-off after its landing gear caught on fire and caused two wheels to explode yesterday evening. Footage from the scene shows the plane on the tarmac surrounded by fire trucks. There were no reported injuries. - Instagram
🌊The dangers of Victoria’s beaches and waterways were on full display on the weekend after 145 people (on just Saturday) had to be rescued and three people died.
➡️A jet ski rider died on Friday after he was pulled from waters near Rye. The incident happened off Butler St along the Mornington Peninsula, about 3km from Rye Beach pier, just before 5:30pm. The exact circumstances of the man’s death are unknown. - Victoria Police
➡️Also on Friday, an eight-year-old boy drowned near a campsite in Victoria’s East Gippsland region, not far from the town of Cobbannah, while swimming in a river. - Victoria Police
➡️On Saturday at 10:15am a man was pulled dead from the water after suffering a medical emergency at the Mornington Peninsula’s Gunnamatta Beach. - news.com.au
➡️Again on Saturday, two teenagers were taken to hospital following a collision between a jet ski and a boat at Safety Beach, also along the Mornington Peninsula. A man in his 20s was also taken to hospital after a separate incident at the same beach. - ABC
🌧️ Monday weather
Crime Watch
This section is dedicated to crime news. Scroll on if you want to skip to lighter news. It tends to be longer on Mondays due to many incidents over the weekend.
🔥Around 30 Nunawading residents had to be evacuated after a nearby Forty Winks store was deliberately set alight on Sunday morning.
➡️The shop in the eastern suburb has been completely destroyed by the fire. - VictorianNews.com
🏛️A 22-year-old has been charged with murder two weeks after a 60-year-old died from a gunshot wound in Campbellfield. The Craigieburn man, 60, died in hospital after allegedly being shot in the stomach when two men approached him outside a property in Gentles Avenue on December 20. - Victoria Police
A woman in Windsor was woken at 6am yesterday morning to find an intruder in her home. She whipped out her phone and started to film her unwelcome guest as they scrambled to escape the home. Thankfully the victim was unharmed. - Twitter/ Madeline Burke
🪓 A 26-year-old man from Werribee has been charged after an attempted armed robbery in Southbank, Melbourne. A 33-year-old man had been withdrawing cash from an ATM when he was approached by an axe-wielding assailant on Saturday, 30 November who tried to rob him. - Victoria Police
🍺 Three men in Collingwood have been charged over their connection to an alcohol theft syndicate where more than $130,000 in liquor was stolen across nearly 20 suburbs in over 100 incidents. - Victoria Police
🥷Supermarket staff in a western suburb have been left shaken after getting bashed by a gang of thieves. The workers at an IGA in Deer Park spotted a thief attempting to steal a carton of beer on New Year’s Eve, they chased the man outside before they were confronted by several other men. The group then attacked a staff member and ransacked the store. - 7 News
👮 Police are searching for two armed men after a woman was robbed in Melbourne's south-east on Saturday morning. The 29-year-old woman was walking through a shopping centre carpark on Autumn Place in Doveton at 9am when a man got out of a car and demanded her handbag. - Nine News
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🏡Rock climbing walls, water slides, skate parks, miniature golf courses and motocross tracks are among the fun (read: ridiculous) features that could be seen in Melbourne backyards this year as those in leafy suburbs attempt to outdo their neighbours. - realestate.com.au
🏃It’s easy and dare I say enjoyable at times to pick on local councils. They’re the frontline of government after all. So credit where it’s due, The City of Melbourne has published a genuinely useful list of “Ways to save money and feel good in Melbourne”. - City of Melbourne
🔥Bushfires were in Melbourne yesterday. A shrub fire was spotted burning along the side of a freeway in Airport West. - Instagram/Jacqui Felgate
🤒 A measles alert has been issued in Victoria after a new confirmed case was found in Cranbourne, with experts releasing a public warning for several exposure sites. - Public Health Victoria
🎾Tennis legend Novak Djokovic has revealed the ‘trauma’ he still experiences visiting Melbourne three years on after being locked in detention and deported during Victoria’s Covid crisis. - Herald Sun
🥊One of the world’s best cage fighters has turned to Melbourne’s most besieged underworld figure for protection. UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov is seen with ex-bikie and boxer Sam “The Punisher” Abdulrahim in a new video. Abdulrahim built a reputation as the most hunted man in the underworld after becoming the target of three murder contracts, a prison bashing, three assaults, a dozen firebombings and seven shootings. - TikTok (via The Age)
🚧If you want to avoid getting stuck in gridlock you may want to dodge the West Gate Freeway this summer. The state government is urging people to plan ahead as roadworks return to the busy thoroughfare, causing expected delays of up to half an hour. The work starts today! - Full details here
🐘If you’re a parent the summer holidays are long. Really long. Keeping the kids entertained without blowing the budget is a challenge. There’s free entry for children under 16 to Melbourne Zoo, Werribee Open Range Zoo, Healesville Sanctuary and Kyabram Fauna Park on weekends, public holidays and school holidays. - Vic Gov
✍A controversial new citizens petition is calling on the state government and the City of Port Phillip (which includes St Kilda) to improve safety and security due to the prevalence of homelessness. - Change.org
🛝A playground was set alight in Reservoir yesterday. Clips of the DR Atkinson Reserve kids park in flames circulated on community Facebook groups with the predominant response being “why?”. Locals contained the fire before fire crews extinguished it. - Reservoir 3079
🗣️What’s got people talking?🗣️
The heat of course. The temperature hit 40C on the weekend in some suburbs. A letter in The Age honed in on the new suburbs in the west and north of the city calling them heat traps, with few trees and black roofs. The rapid expansion in Melbourne’s growth corridors offers much-needed affordable housing, but are developers cutting corners?
🐍And finally…Not growing up on these shores (I’m from Scotland originally), you should know if I see a story about a snake, kangaroo, big spider or koala I’m going to try to shoehorn it in. So without further ado, a holidaygoer found a snake in their suitcase during a break to regional Victoria, right next to where a baby was. - Instagram
Thank you for reading edition 34 of The Melbourne Snap. If you missed Friday’s edition you can read it again here. This newsletter is 100% independent and free for all. It’s written in the early hours every weekday morning. Any support you can give, either by becoming a paid subscriber or simply sharing this with a friend, is greatly appreciated. Thank you, see you tomorrow.