Embattled Australia hit by fires

Three major fires on Sunday razed properties around the west coast city of Perth as a volatile weather system trailing Cyclone Yasi, a top-level storm that battered Australia’s northeast coast on Thursday, continued to wreak havoc.

Local media said up to 20 houses had gone up in flames at Roleystone, a heavily wooded area on the southern outskirts of Perth, with another out-of-control blaze on the northern fringes forcing more than 150 evacuations. It came as the southeastern state of Victoria paused to mark two years since the “Black Saturday” firestorm that claimed 173 lives and obliterated entire villages.

Some towns ravaged by the 2009 fires were also hit by Cyclone Yasi-linked flash floods overnight which forced thousands from their homes in Victoria, still reeling from last month’s flooding that also swamped Queensland state.

Mildura — a city of some 50,000 residents — had a year’s worth of rain dumped on it in a single day, inundating 200 homes. “We are heading for some major problems in Victoria and this is going to strike people as really cruel, given that Victoria is about to mark the second anniversary of the devastating bushfires,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard said.

A man died after his truck was swept into floodwaters as he tried to cross a swollen creek near the rural town of Wagga Wagga on Sunday, while intense rains were forecast for Alice Springs, in Australia’s red desert centre. Yasi was one of the largest storms to ever hit Australia, and Treasurer Wayne Swan warned it would deepen economic woes brought by the Queensland floods.