Summer ended : Australian bushfire to Queensland Flood

Alhamdullillah, we survived summer this year round. This time it was hotter than last year....phewwwww... I think the highest recorded temperature (as far as I know) was 39 deg C. Luckily I spent daytime in the office (though sometimes it was warm inside the office, maybe they wanted to conserve energy, hence they have set moderate temperature inside the office), otherwise I will definately loose focus working from home. There is no air-conditioned unit inside the apartment, only a couple of table fans to cool the apartment. Guess that is why they took long vacation during summer, maybe to get away from the heat.


This summer the nation was shocked by two heart-wrenching tragedies. Maybe some of you are aware about a disaster happened at Victoria, Australia, the bushfire tragedy. To date around 200 people died because of the disaster. The state is still on alert because some places are still affected by bushfires. Victoria's capital is Melbourne, you can see the affected area from the map below (taken from http://enviro-map.com/victorian-bushfire-map).



In this picture (taken from www.reddit.com/user/antardis/, you can see in the background the bushfire engulfed the forest, and black smoke almost concealing the sun. Indeed a scary sight.



The aftermath (www.smh.com.au/.../2009/02/09/1234027889048.html). The red alert portal was setup to aid the community. You can find information about bushfire in the website.

Early in February, large part of North Queensland was affected by heavy rain and flooding. Actually the same tragedy happened last year, same part of Queensland. The only thing that is different, this time it was worst.





Picture taken from http://www.fourwinds10.com/siterun_data/environment/weather_and_climate/news.php?q=1233873708


I received a number of messages, via email, faceboook and YM from friends, asking me whether we were affected by the flood. Thank you friends for caring about us hehehe....Alhamdullillah, Brisbane was not affected by any of these tragedy.