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SYDNEY: Australian authorities plan to evacuate thousands more on Monday (March 22) from flood-affected suburbs in western Sydney, which will see its worst flood in 60 years and another day of torrential rain is expected.
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.
“Floods are likely to be higher than any flood since November 1961,” New South Wales emergency services said in a tweet Sunday night. Authorities expect the wild weather to continue through Wednesday.
Rapid flooding tore houses apart, washed away vehicles and farm animals, and submerged roads, bridges, houses and farms, TV and social media images showed.
A still image taken from video shows an area flooded after heavy rains in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia, on March 20, 2021. Alex McNaught, roving-rye.com photography / via REUTERS
Almost 2,000 people have already been evacuated from low-lying areas, New South Wales emergency services said.
Large parts 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 meteorological office said.
“These two sources of moisture are merging and will create a multi-state rain and storm band beginning Monday,” the Bureau of Meteorology said in a statement.
A severe flood warning has been issued for much of New South Wales and neighboring Queensland.
“This is very, very serious and very severe storms and floods, and it is also a very complex weather system … so this is a testing moment,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told 2GB radio station on Monday. .
Sydney recorded Sunday the wettest day of the year with almost 111mm 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 showed.
