About 18,000 Australians have been evacuated from flooding across New South Wales as heavy rain continues to batter the east coast. Days of torrential downpours have caused rivers and dams to overflow around Sydney – the state capital – and in south-east Queensland.
Officials say the “one-in-a-50-year event” may continue all week and have urged the public to exercise caution.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has offered funds for those forced to flee. NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said no deaths had been reported by late Monday – describing it as “a miracle given what we have been through”.
But there has been widespread damage in the affected areas, which are home to about a third of Australia’s 25 million people.
Ms Berejiklian said many of the communities “being battered by the floods” had been affected by bushfires and drought the previous summer.
“I don’t know any time in state history where we have had these extreme weather conditions in such quick succession in the middle of a pandemic,” she said.
Emergency services have conducted at least 750 rescues, including winching people from cars. One stranded family was lifted from their flooded home by a helicopter.
Responders also saved a family with an infant from flooding in their home in Sydney’s west.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has said the rainfall – up to 900mm in some areas – has been “extraordinary”. Many areas across NSW resembled an “inland sea”, the bureau said.
On Monday, authorities were most concerned about those in the low-lying areas north and west of Sydney, the NSW Central Coast and the Hawkesbury valley. The flooding has caused havoc across NSW, forcing 15,000 evacuations on the state’s Mid-North Coast and a further 3,000 in Sydney, officials said.
Swollen rivers cut off roads and bridges and forced about 150 schools to shut on Monday.
There have been images of dead wildlife, livestock floating through flooded areas and rows of houses engulfed up to their windows.
The Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers – which border Sydney to the north and west – reached higher levels on Monday than during a devastating flood in 1961. Forecasters said the Hawkesbury river could peak at around 13m (42ft) later in the day.
In addition, the Warragamba Dam, Sydney’s main water source, has began spilling over for the first time in five years. Authorities said it was discharging about 500 gigalitres a day – equivalent to the volume of Sydney Harbour.
Authorities have issued 28 evacuation orders across the state, affecting several thousand people. Another 16 areas have been given warnings.
“What we’re going through now is different to what you’ve been through for the last 50 years, so please take it seriously,” Ms Berejiklian said at an earlier briefing.
“It’s the sustained rainfall, the fact that weather event has settled in, it’s not moving on, and also, of course, the capacity of the [Warragamba Dam] spillover and what that might mean,” she added. [BBC]
