Australia experienced its hottest month on record in January, despite floods and storms that devastated parts of the country's east, officials said.

The Bureau of Meteorology said both the average mean temperature of 29.68 degrees Celsius (85.42 degrees Fahrenheit) and the average mean maximum temperature of 36.92 Celsius surpassed previous records set in January 1932.

Australia insisted Friday that protecting the Great Barrier Reef was a top priority, but conservationists WWF said not enough had been done to prevent UNESCO deeming it a world heritage site "in danger".

In June, UNESCO demanded decisive action from Australia to protect the world's largest coral reef from a gas and mining boom and increasing coastal development, or risk the embarrassment of seeing it put on the danger list.

Australia ramped up its military response to deadly floodwaters rising in the country's sodden northeast Tuesday which have killed four people and displaced or isolated tens of thousands.

Storms triggered by ex-tropical cyclone Oswald have claimed four lives -- the most recent a three-year-old boy killed by a falling tree -- as heavy rains have brought flooding to the states of Queensland and New South Wales.

Three people were dead and dozens plucked from roofs and marooned cars in dramatic air rescues in northeastern Australia Monday as severe floods swept through two states, inundating thousands of homes.

The bodies of two men swept away by floodwaters were found Monday, one in the Queensland state capital Brisbane and another further north at Gympie, following the earlier discovery of an elderly man's body near the city of Bundaberg.

Two people were missing and the body of a third person was recovered from raging floodwaters as severe storms pounded northeastern Australia on Sunday, forcing more than 1,000 to flee their homes.

Army aircraft were deployed in the northern state of Queensland, where storms generated by former tropical cyclone Oswald unleashed punishing rains and localized tornadoes and floodwaters threatened several major towns.

Destructive "tornadoes" hit Australia's northeast coast on Saturday, as officials warned parts of Queensland state to prepare for flooding, with torrential rains lashing the state set to intensify.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said wild gusts had caused much damage in Bargara near Bundaberg, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of Brisbane.

A Polish man was lucky to be alive Friday after sailing from Papua New Guinea to a north Australian island on a raft made of twigs and sticks, through crocodile and shark-infested waters, during a cyclone.

The man was found washed up in mangroves on Saibai Island in the Torres Strait, a treacherous stretch of water that lies between the two countries.

Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia have all urged their citizens to leave the Libyan city of Benghazi due to a "specific, imminent threat to Westerners,” linked to French action in Mali.

Britain's warning Thursday sparked an angry response from Libya's government, which said there was "no new intelligence" to justify such concerns in the eastern city.

Temperatures in Sydney hit their highest level on record on Friday, with the mercury in Australia's biggest city reaching 45.8 degrees Celsius (114.4 Fahrenheit) in the mid-afternoon.

Sydney's previous hottest recorded temperature was 45.3 degrees set in 1939.

Hundreds of descendants and supporters of Ned Kelly bade farewell to the infamous Australian bushranger at a requiem mass on Friday, some 132 years after he was executed for killing three policemen.

His memory still divides the nation, with some believing he was a cold-blooded killer, while others see him as a folk hero and symbol of Irish-Australian defiance against British colonial authorities.