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For Reuters 
3h ago
Renju Jose
Sydney – Australian authorities plan to evacuate thousands more on Monday from flood-affected suburbs in western Sydney, which will see its worst flooding in 60 years and torrential rains are expected to continue for the next few days.
Relentless rains over the past three days raised rivers in Australia’s most populous state of New South Wales (NSW), causing widespread damage and prompting calls for mass evacuations.
“We need to prepare, it will be a very difficult week,” New South Wales state premier Gladys Berejiklian told reporters.
The torrential rains that have submerged large swaths of New South Wales are in stark contrast to weather conditions in the same regions a year ago, when authorities were battling drought and catastrophic wildfires.
“I don’t know of any time in the history of a state where we’ve had these extreme weather conditions in such rapid succession in the middle of a pandemic,” Berejiklian said.
Sydney recorded the wettest day of the year on Sunday with almost 111mm (4.4 inches) of rain, while some regions of the north coast of New South Wales received nearly 900mm of rain in the past six days, more than three times the March average, government data. presented.
Authorities said about 18,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying areas of the state.
Much of the country’s east coast will be hit by more heavy rains starting Monday due to the combination of a tropical low over northern Western Australia and a coastal trough off New South Wales, the Office official said. of Meteorology (BoM), Jane Golding.
“We expect this heavy rain to fall in areas that have not seen so much rain in recent days, we expect the risk of flooding to develop in those areas as well,” Golding told reporters.
Some places in Sydney’s western regions have seen the worst flooding since 1961, authorities said, as they expect the wild weather to continue through Wednesday.
A severe flood warning has been issued for much of New South Wales and neighboring Queensland.
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