Immigrants face Outback death after tunnel escape

A group of asylum seekers who tunnelled out of a remote detention centre in the desert of southern Australia could fall prey to the harsh Outback climate, a local politician warned today.

Seven suspected illegal immigrants from the Middle East are believed to have used their bare hands to burrow through rain-drenched soil and under security fencing at the centre in Woomera, a former missile testing base 870 miles west of Sydney.