Smoke from Australia's bushfires killed far more people than the fires did, study says

Exclusive: Poor air quality contributed to 400 deaths and more than 4,000 hospital attendances, research in Medical Journal of Australia shows

Smoke pollution that blanketed Australia's south-east for many months during the bushfire crisis may have killed more than 400 people, according to the first published estimate of the scale of health impacts - more than 10 times the number killed by the fires themselves.

The figures, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, are "definitely alarming", according to Chris Migliaccio, who studies the long-term effects of wildfire smoke at the University of Montana in Missoula and was not involved in the research.