Sydney on alert: they order the evacuation of over 30 thousand residents due to the floods

The Australian city of Sydney and its environs on Sunday heightened their state of alert due to the torrential rains that have hit the region since last Friday, causing dangerous floods. In this context, the authorities have ordered the evacuation of 32 thousand residentsas it could be the worst catastrophe of its kind in the past year and a half.

“The latest information we have is that there is a very good chance there will be floods worse than any of the other three that those areas have had in the past 18 months, ” Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Floods could hit areas that were spared in previous crises, Watt added. Rapidly rising rivers flooded tracts of Sydney on Monday, forcing thousands of people to flee “dangerous” floods as the city’s largest dam spewed out torrents of water.

The head of the state government, Dominic Perrottet, specified the number of people affected by the evacuation orders and notices and warned that “you will likely see that number increase over the course of the week”.

Perrottet also warned that the government and communities must adapt to the floods that are becoming more frequent in Australia’s most populous state. “There is no doubt that these episodes are becoming more common. And governments need to adapt and make sure they respond to the changing environment we find ourselves in, ” the official added.

Despite this scenario, the director of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Jane Golding, assured that “the system that generated this weather shows signs it will send tomorrowbut expect more rain for today. ”

Meanwhile, Theresa Fedeli, Mayor of Camden, located along the Nepean River, southwest of Sydney, said the repeated floods are putting a strain on her community members.

“it is simply devastating”, explained Fedeli, an official of a municipality where rivers of muddy water have transformed an extensive tract of land into a lake. Streets disappeared under water and mobile homes were flooded, television images showed.

In parallel, large quantities of water came out of the Warragamba dam, which releases excess water from Sunday. The huge concrete dam is located on the outskirts of Sydney and supplies most of the city with clean water.

More than a hundred rescues

The emergency services did it 116 flood relief in recent days, 83 of them by 9pm on Sunday, he noted. By Monday morning, hundreds more requests for help had been received.

Some areas between Newcastle, north of Sydney, and Wollongong, south of that city, had seen more than one meter (39 inches) of rain in the previous 24 hours, Golding said. Some received more than 1.5 meters (59 inches) of water.

Floods on the east coast in March, triggered by severe storms that devastated western Sydney, killed at least 21 people.

With information from AFP and AP.

IS