Outback storm floods Australia

Australia is living up to its iconic image as a sunburnt country of droughts and flooding rains, with a huge outback storm causing flooding in three states yesterday as drought-fuelled bushfires continued burning.

Monsoon rains over the country's vast interior have caused the usually dry Todd River in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory to come to life and flooded outback South Australia state and parts of Victoria and New South Wales states.

The small rural town of Oodnadatta in South Australia was flooded and most major roads leading to it closed to traffic by rising waters, emergency service officials said.

Sister Joan Wilson at the Oodnadatta Hospital said medical supplies were running low. The flooding prevented the Royal Flying Doctor service, the outback's medical lifeline, from reaching the town. Many remote cattle properties in South Australia were also cut off, but farmers battling the worst drought in 100 years welcomed the rains.

As the outback storm moved east across Australia it caused flooding in Victoria, which has been battling bushfires for more than 50 days, and also the state of New South Wales.

Fires have struck five of Australia's six states since November, blackening more than 4,600 square miles of bushland, killing one and gutting dozens of homes.