MELBOURNE – Heavy rains on Australia’s east coast over the weekend have caused the worst flooding in half a century in some areas, officials said on Sunday, forcing thousands of people to evacuate and damaging hundreds of homes.
New South Wales Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian said the statewide shower, Australia’s most populous with 8 million inhabitants, was worse than initially expected, especially in the low-lying areas of northwest Sydney.
“Yesterday, we expected it to be just one event in 20 years, now it looks like one event in 50 years,” Berejiklian said at a news conference.
People in northwestern parts of Sydney were forced to flee their homes in the middle of the night, as the rapid movement of the waters caused widespread destruction. Berejiklian said another 4,000 people could still be asked to evacuate.
Television and social media images showed fast-moving water untying houses, engulfing roads, breaking trees and damaging road infrastructure. Emergency services estimate that the total number of damaged houses is “in the hundreds”.
Several major roads were closed across the state, while many schools canceled classes for Monday.
The floods come in stark contrast to the devastating forest fires that hit Australia in late 2019 and early 2020, when almost 7% of NSW’s land was burned.
Flood and evacuation risk warnings were in effect in about 13 areas in NSW, including Hunter, one of Australia’s leading wine regions.
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Several dams, including Warragamba, Sydney’s main water supply, overflowed causing the river to rise.
Meteorologists said the downpour should continue for the rest of Sunday, with some areas expected to reach 20 centimeters of rain.
Emergency responders have responded to some 6,000 requests for help since the rains began on Thursday, including almost 700 direct requests for flood relief.
The extreme weather also affected the delivery of Australia’s Covid-19 vaccine across NSW, disrupting the country’s plans to deliver the first doses to nearly 6 million people in the coming weeks.
“We have to wait and see what will happen with the weather in the next few days,” Australian medical director Michael Kidd said at a news conference.