AustLit

'The Black Saturday bushfires of 7 February 2009 were the most catastrophic in Australia’s history. One hundred and seventy three people lost their lives and over two thousand homes were destroyed.

'Award winning historian and writer Robert Kenny had a sound fire plan and he was prepared. But the reality of the fire was more ferocious and more unpredictable than he could have imagined. By the end of the day, his house and the life contained within were gone.

'Gardens of Fire extends his experience of being engulfed by flames to an investigation of the human relationship with fire.

'Kimina Lyall was the Australian's Bangkok correspondent. At the beginning of her posting she underwent a devastating experience. Yet despite everything, she was determined not to let it force her back to Australia. Instead, she and her partner discovered the perfect island retreat. On a paradisical beach, among a small international community, they built their dream holiday escape. Moving between bustling Bangkok and the peace of the beach, Kimina was able to recreate her sense of peace. That is until everything was swept into the sea on 26 December 2004.

'The sky at the top end is big and the weather moves like a living thing. You can hear it in the cracking air when there is an electrical storm and as the thunder rolls around the sky…

'When Cyclone Tracy swept down on Darwin at Christmas 1974, the weather became not just a living thing but a killer. Tracy destroyed an entire city, left seventy-one people dead and ripped the heart out of Australia's season of goodwill.

'For the fortieth anniversary of the nation's most iconic natural disaster, Sophie Cunningham has gone back to the eyewitness accounts of those who lived through the devastation—and those who faced the heartbreaking clean-up and the back-breaking rebuilding.

A short account of surviving a tropical cyclone in Sri Lanka.

A short account of the Christchurch earthquake in 2011.