Heavy rains have battered the eastern coast of Australia, resulting in floods across Sydney and other parts of New South Wales province.
Nearly 50,000 residents across the state have been told to either evacuate or warned about evacuation order from the authorities, Reuters reported. According to the weather department, major flooding has been reported in Windsor in the city’s western part. Due to floods, more than 19,000 homes are facing power cuts, AFP reported.
“This event is far from over. Please don’t be complacent, wherever you are. Please be careful when you’re driving on our roads. There is still substantial risk for flash flooding across our state,” New South Wales Premier Perrottet said.
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese held high-level meetings with his cabinet colleagues over the flood situation in Australia. He would be touring the affected regions on Wednesday. The government has declared floods a natural disaster and has been relentlessly providing relief to the residents.
Here are the top 10 developments from the flood-hit Sydney.
Hundreds of homes have been inundated in and around Sydney in the flood emergency, Reuters reported. State emergency service manager Ashley Sullivan said the response team carried out 100 rescues overnight of people trapped in the cars on flooded roads in Australia’s largest city.
Jonathan How, a meteorologist from the bureau of meteorology said parts of southern Sydney had received more than 20 centimetres of rainfall in the last 24 hours, which is more than 17 per cent of the city’s annual average. Severe weather warnings of heavy rain remained in place across Sydney’s eastern suburbs on Tuesday. The warnings also extended north of Sydney along the coast and into the Hunter Valley.
A man paddles his kayak through a flooded street at Windsor on the outskirts of Sydney, Australia.(AP)
The Hawkesbury-Nepean river system received the worst flooding along the city’s northern and western fringes, AP reported.
A resident fled his rental home with his partner by paddling through the water in a yellow canoe. “It rose real quick, quicker than usual,” Tyler Cassel told national broadcaster ABC.
Residents of Lansvale, in southwest Sydney, were surprised by the speed at which their area became inundated and the growing frequency of such flooding. “Well, it happened in 1986 and ’88, then it didn’t happen for 28 years and, so, 2016 and 2020 and now it’s happened four times this year,” a Lansvale local identified only as Terry told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television of his home being flooded.
The wild weather and mountainous seas along the New South Wales coast thwarted plans to tow a stricken cargo ship with 21 crew members to the safety of open sea, AP reported. The ship lost power after leaving port in Wollongong, south of Sydney, on Monday morning and risked being grounded by 8-meter (26-foot) swells and winds blowing at 30 knots (34 mph) against cliffs. An attempt to tow the ship with tugboats into open ocean ended when a towline snapped in an 11-meter (36-foot) swell late Monday, Port Authority chief executive Philip Holliday said.
Social media was flooded with images and videos of submerged roads and bridges, while emergency crews rescued stranded people from partially submerged vehicles that became stuck in rising waters, AFP reported. Nigel Myron, a Windsor resident, said he has kept an inflatable boat ready if he had to evacuate though he is looking to move back to his place once waters recede. “At the end of the day, what can you do? It is what it is and we dust ourselves off from the ashes and rebuild after the floods have come and gone,” Myron told ABC television.
Floods have likely inundated several food-producing regions and that would hit supplies and lift prices, further straining family budgets already reeling under soaring prices of vegetables and fruits, federal treasurer Jim Chalmers warned.
The Reserve Bank of Australia flagged the floods “are also affecting some prices” as it raised its cash rate a hefty 50 basis points on Tuesday and flagged more tightening ahead to tame surging inflation.
The Insurance Council of Australia, which declared the floods a ‘significant event’, urged affected people to apply for claims, even though the full extent of damage was unknown now.