TE24 International Desk:
SYDNEY – Thousands of people fled their homes on Australia’s east coast on Wednesday. Heavy rains have caused flooding in Sydney, with communities, roads and bridges submerged in muddy brown waters before heading north.
Officials in New South Wales have issued a new flood warning north of Australia’s largest city,
Despite low rainfall in the city, parts of Sydney are still rising into the rain-swell river. I warned that it was dangerous.
“The incident is not over yet,” said Prime Minister Dominic Perot. Since the floods began over the weekend, paramedics have issued evacuation orders for more than 100 people. A total of 85,000 people were instructed to evacuate their homes or get ready to leave immediately to avoid being trapped by high tides.
On the western edge of Sydney, rivers burst embankments, vast areas turned into lakes, and muddy brown waters invaded homes, blocking roads and bridges. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited the disaster area on Wednesday and promised to find a “long-term solution” after multiple flood disasters on Australia’s east coast in the past 18 months.
“Australia has always been affected by floods and wildfires,” Albanese said, but scientists have warned that climate change will make such events more frequent and severe. “Unfortunately, what we’re seeing is that it works,” he said.
There were 21 flood rescuers across New South Wales overnight and more than 1,000 on Wednesday. The federal government has declared natural disasters in 23 flood-prone areas of the state and subsidized the affected residents. Many of the affected people experienced a series of floods on the east coast, hitting in 2021 and killing more than 20 people in March this year.
The meteorological bureau said the weather system is expected to leave the coast by the end of this week. Andrew Hall, CEO of the Australian Insurance Council, said he hoped the insurance industry would declare Sydney’s floods a “disaster”.
As of Tuesday, there were 2,700 claims in Sydney alone, which allowed people to return home, so more claims were expected, he said. According to Hall, Australia has suffered an A $ 5 billion ($ 3.4 billion) disaster this year. “It’s” unsettling “that homes that have been flooded four times in the last 18 months have insurance pools,” Hall said. “We have to take a step back and ask.”
