SYDNEY – In the driest region of the world’s driest inhabited continent, a vast inland lake that is typically dry is slowly filling with water, marking a rare event that is set to transform the desert region and attract birdlife from as far away as China.

The outback lake, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, which is about 12 times the size of Singapore, is in central Australia, about 750km north of the city of Adelaide.

Typically, the lake, which has filled up to capacity only three times in the past 160 years, is a flat, dry salt pan that receives just 140 millimetres of rain a year.

But waters from massive floods in the state of Queensland hundreds of kilometres to the north-east, in March and April, have been slowly making their way along a sprawling network of waterways towards Lake Eyre, which marks the lowest point on the continent.

The lake has started to fill and could even surpass the levels of the last such event in 1974, when it reached a depth of six metres, the largest filling of the lake, which would make it the most full that it has been in recorded history.

A local pilot, Mr Trevor Wright, who operates sightseeing planes and an accommodation village at Lake Eyre, told The Straits Times that the volumes of water pouring into the lake were “amazing” and that the area was already attracting flourishing birdlife.

“All this water is flooding into the lake and there is more to come,” he said, adding: “’74 was the big one – it is starting to feel like that. There is a good chance it will get to that level. If not, it will be very close.”

The filling of the lake, which covers more than 9,000 sq km, is set to turn the area into a hub of wildlife, including various species of fish and millions of birds such as pelicans, ducks and seagulls that can arrive from across South-east Asia, China and Papua New Guinea.

Other wildlife include invertebrates such as brine shrimp, whose fertilised eggs can sit beneath the salt pan for decades until the arrival of water, which enables them to ha...