Sydney, The Indonesia Post – Australian authorities plan to evacuate thousands more on Monday from a flood-hit suburb west of Sydney, which has been designated the worst in 60 years.
The unrelenting rains over the past three days have flooded the river in Australia’s most populous state of New South Wales (NSW), causing widespread damage and sparking calls for a mass evacuation.
“The floods are likely to be higher than the floods since November 1961,” the NSW emergency services said on their Twitter account late on Sunday.
Authorities predict the extreme weather will continue through Wednesday.
Fast-moving flood waters damaged homes, wiped out vehicles and livestock. Roads, bridges, houses and farms were reportedly submerged.
Nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying areas, the NSW emergency services said.
Much of the country’s east coast will see heavy rain from Monday due to a combination of tropical lowlands north of Western Australia and off the coast of NSW, the weather bureau said.
“These two humidity factors combine and will create multi-country rain and storms from Monday,” the Bureau of Meteorology said in a statement.
A severe flood warning has been issued for large parts of NSW as well as neighbouring Queensland.
“These are very, very serious and very severe storms and floods, and this is also a very complex weather system so these are very difficult times,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told radio station 2GB on Monday.
Sydney on Sunday recorded the wettest day of the year with nearly 111 mm (4.4 inches) of rainfall, while some areas of NSW’s northern coast received nearly 900 mm of rain in the past six days, more than three times the March average, the data showed. government shows. (rma/bbs)
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