The torrential rains that fell in eastern Australia left three dead people and caught almost 50,000 people, said the new South South Wales on Thursday, May 22.
Police extracted a third body on Thursday from the waters in the rural region of Mid North Coast, about 400 kilometers northeast of Sydney. In some places, storms have poured more than half of the precipitation in just three days, according to the government’s weather office.
“We see on the tributaries, the currents and rivers of the levels that we have not seen since 1920,” said Chris Minns journalists, a new Minister of New South Wales, to journalists.
The residents have risen on their roof to escape the rise in the waters, according to the authorities, who said they had sent helicopters, ships and drones as part of a great research and rescue mission.
“A flood as we have not known for a long time”
The city of Kempsey, located in an agricultural region halfway between Brisbane and Sydney, was found surrounded by water without being alerted, said Mayor Kinne Ring. “The showers are torrential and every time it rains, we ask ourselves what will happen,” he said.
Kinne Ring said that more than 20,000 people were isolated right in their region, and that many of them did not have access to medicines or food.
“This is a flood as we have not known for a long time,” he said.
According to estimates informed by Chris Minns, about 50,000 people in total are isolated on the north coast, limited by accident hills of which the water flows afloat. At least three people are missing. The residents saw dead cows stranded on the beaches after being dragged by flood rivers inside the earth.
The government has declared the state of natural disaster, thus unlocking greater resources for the affected areas.
Some 2,500 rescuers have been deployed in the region, as well as in rescue boats, a fleet of helicopters and “hundreds” of research drones. “We have not yet left the worst,” said Kristy McBain, Minister of Emergency Management to the National Channel ABC.
“There is no doubt that climate change has an impact”
“I think there is no doubt that climate change has a significant impact on weather events worldwide,” said Emergency Management Minister. “In Australia, we are not immune to this phenomenon. We observe that devastating events like this occur more frequently.”
Mahdi Sedighkia, an expert in flood modeling, estimated that this natural disaster represented an “irrefutable test” of the way in which climate change could affect regional rainy regimes.
“These events show that our understanding of the probability of floods, based on previous hydrological studies, no longer adapts to current climatic realities,” said the researcher at the National University of Australia.
According to Steve Bernasconi, spokesman for the weather agency, some cities have registered more than 50 cm of rain in the three -day space. But the conditions should begin to slowly improve late at night from Thursday to Friday, he said.
From the interior arid to the Tropical Costa, the entire sections of Australia have been beaten by extreme climatic conditions in recent months. The average temperature on the sea surface throughout the country was the highest registered in 2024, according to the National University of Australia.
The warmer waters cause more moisture in the atmosphere, which leads to more intense rains. Global warming, mainly caused by the combustion of oil, coal and gas, accentuates the violence and frequency of climatic disasters.
Source: BFM TV
