Two die in Sydney as Australia flooding intensifies
The death toll from week-long floods battering Australia's east coast rose to 20 on Tuesday, after the bodies of a man and a woman were discovered in floodwaters in Sydney.
Police said it was "suspected" the pair are a missing mother and son whose car was abandoned in a stormwater canal.
Tens of thousands of Sydney residents have been told to evacuate their homes as severe storms and flash flooding inundated swathes of Australia's largest city Tuesday.
The national weather bureau warned of "a tough 48 hours ahead" for Sydney, with 60,000 people subject to evacuation orders and warnings across the affected areas, according to emergency services.
Intense rainfall across Sydney flooded bridges and homes, swept away cars and even collapsed the roof of a supermarket.
The Manly Dam, in the city's north, began to spill Tuesday, with 2,000 residents told to evacuate.
In the riverside suburb of Georges Hall vehicles were semi-submerged and police had to rescue stranded in their cars by rising floodwaters.
State emergency services have been stretched thin as the torrential rain and intense storms continued into a second week -- with flood warnings in place Tuesday for the entire 2,000-kilometre (1,250-mile) coastline of New South Wales.
"It's very much the watery equivalent of the 'Black Summer' bushfires," emergency services spokesperson Phil Campbell told AFP.
In the past week the scale of the damage to property and wildlife was similar to those devastating bushfires, he said, which ravaged Australia's east for months in late 2019 and early 2020.
"We have also had a similar effect on communities in terms of dislocation with roads closed, infrastructure damaged, power outages," Campbell said.
In the past 24 hours, emergency services were called to 100 flood rescues across the state, a number that is expected to rise as the full force of the storms bears down on Sydney Tuesday.
In the northern reaches of New South Wales -- where floodwaters this week destroyed homes, washed away cars and stranded hundreds of locals on their roofs -- a long, slow cleanup is under way.
There are 800 people in emergency accommodation in the state's Northern Rivers region alone, state emergency services commissioner Charlene York.
According to emergency services, almost half of the 5,000 flood-ravaged homes inspected in the region in the wake of the disaster are uninhabitable.
In Mullumbimby, a town cut off from phone service, internet and outside help for days by the floods, local Casey Whelan told AFP that "lots of people in my street can't get flood insurance".
Australia has been at the sharp end of climate change, with droughts, deadly bushfires, bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef and floods becoming more common and intense as global weather patterns change.
Communities in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, are facing evacuation orders after heavy rainfall of over 200 mm in 24 hours.
Areas of the state, in particular in the north, saw flooding from late February. On 28 February as many as 15,000 people evacuated their homes in Lismore after the Wilsons River reached record levels.
Over the last 24 hours, Sydney and surrounding areas received high levels of rainfall which in turn increased levels of already swollen rivers and reservoirs.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) in NSW said dozens of locations around Sydney and south east NSW saw 100 to 150 mm of rain. Mittagong in the Southern Highlands saw the highest total, recording 232 mm of rain in 24 hours to 08 March.
NSW Premier, Dominic Perrottet, said in a press conference on 08 March that there are currently 59 evacuation orders across the state, affecting a total of around 40,000 people. There are also 15 evacuation warnings affecting 20,000 people. There are 23 flood evacuation centres are currently in operation.
In the last 24 hours, the New South Wales State Emergency Service (SES) issued evacuation orders for areas including in the areas of Camden, Narrabeen and Mulgoa in Greater Sydney, and Sussex Inlet and St Georges Basin further south. Transport including road, train and ferry travel were all disrupted in Greater Sydney. The SES said it carried out 100 flood rescues and responded to 2,400 requests for assistance.
Premier Perrottet added that 2 people died in flood waters in Wentworthville early on 08 March, bringing the total number of recent flood fatalities in the state to seven.
Likely a lot more, reports of civilians pulling bodies out of the water around Lismore and Mullumbimby where there is still barely any official help. Regular people organising aid without government or official charity support, even organising planes to and helicopters, meanwhile the army turns up with two vehicles and films themselves putting some rubbish in a pile and then pisses off again. Silver lining is, people abandoned by the government are learning they don't actually need the government to survive, and that your neighbours are not your enemies regardless of personal decisions.
parzival this flooding was significant in the floodplain areas but we were unaffected. Most of the problem were just the usual morons driving their Toyota Yaris through 3 ft of flood water.
Tsidkenu Saw video of people driving through tunnels in flood water... And people asking why the tunnel wasn't closed, because people need a sign to tell them that's not a good idea...
He who learns must suffer, and, even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
- Aeschylus
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Cough. Cough. More BS than truth here in their loosie goosie terms.
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