Australian authorities want to evacuate thousands more people from Sydney suburbs affected by flooding on Monday. As the torrential rains are likely to continue for the next few days, they expect the worst floods in 60 years.
Rainfall over the past three days has flooded rivers in the densely populated Australian state of New South Wales. This has led to major damage. Thousands of people have been evacuated before. “We have to brace ourselves, it will be a very difficult week,” state Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian told reporters.
A year ago, authorities in the same regions faced drought and catastrophic forest fires. “I don’t know of any time in the history of the state when we’ve had extreme weather events so quickly in the midst of a pandemic,” said Berejiklian.
With almost 111 millimeters of rain, Sydney registered the wettest day of the year on Sunday. In some regions on the state’s north coast, nearly 900 millimeters of rain fell in the past six days, more than three times the March average. About 18,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying parts of New South Wales, authorities say.
Meteorologists expect large parts of Australia’s east coast to be hit by more heavy rainfall from Monday. Authorities say some places in Sydney’s western regions are experiencing the worst floods since 1961. They expect bad weather to last until Wednesday.
Large parts of New South Wales and the neighboring state of Queensland are under serious flood risk.
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