Australia’s southeastern coast was hit by one of the worst floods in decades, forcing thousands of people to leave their homes and evacuate to safer places. Some people were left stranded on rooftops and high bridges, waiting to be rescued by authorities.
Dominic Perrottet, the Premier of Australia’s New South Wales, said that more than 6,000 calls were received from people seeking help. About 1,000 rescues were also conducted in the state alone.
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He further explained that 300,000 people have already been placed under evacuation warnings, signaling they also may be asked to leave their homes. 40,000 evacuations have already been ordered, according to reports from Associated Press.
So far, eight people have been killed in the Australian floods, with all the fatalities being reported in Queensland. The latest fatality was a man who was trapped in a car in floodwater on Monday at Gold Coast city.
The floodwaters are moving south into New South Wales from Queensland state in the worst disaster in the region since what was described as a once-in-a-century event in 2011, according to reports from Associated Press.
In the town of Woodburn, dozens of cars stuck on a bridge had nowhere to go on Monday both ends of the road were submerged in floodwater. Officials said that nearly 50 people were rescued on early Tuesday.
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Ashley Slapp, Woodburn’s State Emergency Services Commander, said in a statement to Australian Broadcasting Corp, “We had no capabilities to get them off in the dark so we just had to make sure that they bunkered down and we went in this morning and got them all out.”
The extraordinary rainfall comes as the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported this week that vast swathes of Australia have already lost 20% of its rainfall and the country’s fire risk has gone beyond worst-case scenarios developed just a few years ago.
