Dor more than a week of torrential rains have been pouring down the east coast of Australia, causing flooding. On Tuesday March 8, the death toll rose to 20, authorities announced after the bodies of a woman and a man were discovered in Sydney, where further heavy rainfall and sudden flooding are expected. They would be the two people wanted since their car was found in the middle of floodwaters, according to the police. Some 60,000 residents of Australia’s largest city were told to evacuate their homes on Tuesday, ahead of flash flooding in many parts of the city, according to emergency services.
The torrential rains that hit Sydney submerged bridges, flooded homes, swept away cars, and the roof of a supermarket collapsed. The Manly dam in the north of the city began to overflow on Tuesday and 2,000 residents were told to evacuate. In the suburb of Georges Hall, located on the edge of a river, vehicles were half submerged and the police had to rescue people trapped in their cars by the sudden rise in water. Rescue services were stretched to the limit on Tuesday as torrential rains and severe storms continued to sweep across New South Wales state for the second week in a row. The Australian Meteorological Agency has called for vigilance for the next 48 hours which promise to be “difficult”.
READ ALSOSubmarine case: Canberra and London welcome “progress”
The equivalent of fires
Flood alerts have been issued along all of the state’s 2,000 kilometers of coastline. These floods are “the aquatic equivalent of the unprecedented forest fires” that ravaged Australia for months in 2019 and 2020, Phil Campbell, spokesman for the relief services, told AFP. The severe weather, which began last week, caused property and wildlife damage similar to those fires, he added. “They have the same consequences for the population: closed roads, damaged infrastructure and power cuts,” he said. In the past 24 hours, help has been called to help around 100 people and that number is expected to rise as the storm rolls through Sydney on Tuesday.
In northern New South Wales, flooding has destroyed homes, swept away cars and forced hundreds of residents to their roofs. The long and difficult cleaning operations have begun. Mullumbimby, a city located south of Brisbane, has been cut off from the rest of the world for several days, without telephones, without Internet and without outside help, explained to AFP a resident, Casey Whelan. “Many people in my street cannot be compensated by insurance (…), they will have no way to rebuild,” he lamented. Australia has been hit hard in recent years by climate change: droughts, deadly bushfires and floods are becoming more frequent and intense.
READ ALSOMegafires, this growing threat that will put the world to the test