Category Archives: Adelaide

Australia fires live: NSW and SA count cost of bushfires after Balmoral and Cudlee Creek devastation – latest

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Cudlee Creek fire revealed to have destroyed 86 homes in South Australia while 100 more estimated lost in New South Wales as residents wait to discover extent of devastation from weekend’s fires. Follow the latest news and updates

SA Premier and Governor tour the fireground in Woodside in Adelaide Hills #safires @abcadelaide @CFSAlerts pic.twitter.com/VRfRvWLdny

Many more homes could have been lost in the NSW town of Balmoral on Saturday when the RFS firefighting crew ran out of water.

Guardian Australia’s Helen Davidson reports flames began reaching 200m above the treetops and the town, which is on tank water, simply did not have enough to meet demand.

We were desperately trying to get more water into us, desperately calling for more to come in. A member from another brigade spoke to his boss about getting another truck into us really quick. That company saved a lot of homes.

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Australia fires: NSW devastation laid bare as 72 homes destroyed in SA bushfires

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Australian PM Scott Morrison says government won’t change its climate change policy as New South Wales premier says ‘not much left’ of town of Balmoral

The devastation from Australia’s bushfire crisis became clearer on Sunday, as the South Australian premier said 72 homes had been destroyed and his New South Wales counterpart revealed there was “not much left” of the town of Balmoral, south-west of Sydney.

It is feared the figures for homes lost may get much worse as authorities continue to assess the damage from Saturday, and with dozens of fires still active.

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Frustrating cities: behind Australia’s urban design fails

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Sydney’s pedestrian bottlenecks, Brisbane’s barren streetscapes and Perth’s freeway fiascos: cities across the country are making classic mistakes

In every city there are places where the road should be just a bit wider, where the bus stop would be better a few metres down or, perhaps, a multi-lane highway simply should not exist.

Bad urban design is a barrier to what should be the smooth flow of life in cities. It ruins commutes and can make daily life unnecessarily difficult for the disabled or elderly.

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Australia braces for electric scooter boom as confusion reigns over state laws

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Some retailers are giving inaccurate advice to shoppers in states where it is illegal to ride e-scooters on public roads or footpaths

Retailers are preparing for a Christmas boom in the sale of electric scooters, even though it is illegal to ride them on public roads or footpaths in several states.

Federal and state regulation has struggled to keep up with the technology, leaving consumers at risk of inadvertently breaking the law.

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Great Australian heatwave takes a breather – only to return again soon

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Late monsoon and lack of strong cold fronts cited as main reasons behind back-to-back spells of abnormally hot weather

This week’s record-smashing heatwave is over for now in Australia’s south-east, but the reprieve will be short-lived as temperatures build up again in the coming days.

A perfect storm, or rather the lack of one, is partly to blame for the extreme temperatures, with neither the northern monsoons nor the southern cool fronts making their usual appearances.

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