Wild camels are invading remote communities in the Australian deserts, demolishing buildings in a desperate attempt to find water amid the country’s severe drought.

More than 200 camels invaded an Aboriginal community on the edge of the Gibson Desert, in Western Australia. The rampaging animals tore at air-conditioning units and smashed taps and lavatories to drink from fractured water pipes.

Alex Knight, a scientist who travelled to Warakurna to investigate the invasion, said that the camels attacked the airconditioning units because they could smell the moisture inside. “They are very big and strong animals — they can break through infrastructure. They are coming into the desert communities looking for water,” he said. “Camels can bust a tap right off.”

Glenn Edwards, the principal scientist with the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service, said that mobs of camels wandering into outback communities were a phenomenon of the continuing dry spell. “When you have a dry summer like we’re having now, the camels will come in search of easier access to water,” he said. “It’s not unheard of for them to rip taps out of the ground, destroy toilets if they can get into a toilet building, rip the cisterns off the wall and so on.”

More than one million camels are estimated to range across the central Australian arid zone, which extends into the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia. Camels are not indigenous to Australia but were imported, mainly from India, between 1840 and 1907 to assist in the construction of railways and mines. Demand declined with the arrival of the car and thousands of camels were released into the wild.

Mr Edwards said that their population was doubling about every eight years and, unlike kangaroos, did not suffer high rates of mortality during drought.

Camels living in the arid zones such as the Australian deserts travelled vast distances in the search for water, he said. Individual animals can traverse a region of between 4,000 and 5,000 square kilometres (1,544-1,930 square miles) in a year.

Last night bush fires threatened to destroy ten towns in northeastern Victoria. Emergency services gave warning that high winds and soaring temperatures were likely to cause more than 30 fires to link up, producing a 60-mile wall of flames.

Desert ships

1 camel out of nine survived voyage to Australia in 1840

25,000 camels at the peak of their popularity in the 1920s

600,000 wild population today

153 camels shot in a day after 1925 Camel Destruction Act

£24m spent annually to protect livestock from camels

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