Gumleaf
February 7th, 2009, 01:00 AM
15:00 AEST Sat Feb 7 2009
Today was a day of wild weather extremes across Australia as floodwaters rose in northern Queensland while more than 100 thousand firefighters remained on standby in the three southeastern states.
More than 40 blazes are burning in Victoria and New South Wales as a heatwave pushed the mercury as high as 47 degrees accompanied by strong winds and South Australia faces its 13th straight day of searing heat.
Melbourne recorded its hottest day since records began 150 years ago, peaking at 46.4 degrees.
The town of Avalon, 50km south-west of Melbourne, also smashed its heat record, reaching 47.9 degrees.
There are fire bans across much of the nation's southeast with conditions said to be the worst since the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983, which killed 75 people and razed two and a half thousand houses.
A 160-hectare inferno's burning out of control about an hour east of Melbourne with flames up to 10 metres jumping control lines power lines supplying Melbourne under threat and evacuations underway in three nearby towns.
Meanwhile, flash floods have hit the north Queensland town of Innisfail after 350 millimetres of rain fell on the saturated state overnight swelling already flooded rivers.
Two thirds of Queensland's been declared a disaster area with more than a million square kilometres and three thousand homes flood-affected by two recent cyclones.
The sugar cane and cattle industries are being devastated by the floods with tens of thousands of stranded cows starving to death.
© AAP 2009
Today was a day of wild weather extremes across Australia as floodwaters rose in northern Queensland while more than 100 thousand firefighters remained on standby in the three southeastern states.
More than 40 blazes are burning in Victoria and New South Wales as a heatwave pushed the mercury as high as 47 degrees accompanied by strong winds and South Australia faces its 13th straight day of searing heat.
Melbourne recorded its hottest day since records began 150 years ago, peaking at 46.4 degrees.
The town of Avalon, 50km south-west of Melbourne, also smashed its heat record, reaching 47.9 degrees.
There are fire bans across much of the nation's southeast with conditions said to be the worst since the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983, which killed 75 people and razed two and a half thousand houses.
A 160-hectare inferno's burning out of control about an hour east of Melbourne with flames up to 10 metres jumping control lines power lines supplying Melbourne under threat and evacuations underway in three nearby towns.
Meanwhile, flash floods have hit the north Queensland town of Innisfail after 350 millimetres of rain fell on the saturated state overnight swelling already flooded rivers.
Two thirds of Queensland's been declared a disaster area with more than a million square kilometres and three thousand homes flood-affected by two recent cyclones.
The sugar cane and cattle industries are being devastated by the floods with tens of thousands of stranded cows starving to death.
© AAP 2009