CANBERRA, OCTOBER 14 (BUS) : Homes in Melbourne and other cities in southeastern Australia were flooded on Friday with rivers expected to continue dangerously high for several days, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Authorities said about 70 residents have been asked to leave the northwestern Melbourne suburb of Maribyrnong, along with hundreds in the Victorian cities of Pinalla and Wedderburn. Melbourne is the second most populous city in Australia with a population of 5 million.
Victorian Prime Minister Daniel Andrews said the floods had submerged nearly 500 homes in Victoria and had isolated another 500 homes. He said these numbers will increase.
Most of the state, Andrews said, has been seeing “a very, very big event of rainfall, and of course it comes with completely wet soil.”
“The real challenge now is that we have another rain event next week and the (Met Office) office is forecasting more rain over the next six to eight weeks and it won’t take a lot of additional water until there are more flooding events,” Andrews added. “This has just started and will be with us for a while.”
Andrews said 4,700 homes were without power, more than 3,500 homes reported by Victoria’s emergency service earlier on Friday.
The Bureau of Meteorology said unprecedented large flooding was occurring or expected to occur in several rivers in Victoria and the southern state of Tasmania.
The office said moderate to large flooding north of Victoria was occurring along several rivers in the state of inland New South Wales.
A 63-year-old man was reported missing in floodwaters in New South Wales on Tuesday, and one person was reported missing in central Victoria on Friday, officials said. No details have been released about the missing person from the Victorian town of Newbridge.
On Tuesday, police found the body of a 46-year-old man in his submerged car in flood waters near the city of Bathurst in New South Wales, west of Sydney, a day after his death.
The State Emergency Service said it had carried out 108 flood rescues in Victoria in the past 48 hours.
State emergency service chief Josh Gamble said complacency is the main reason people get in trouble.
“This is very important and we haven’t had this many flood rescues for some time, actually for several years,” Gamble said.
“Many of these people are putting their lives at risk, their children in some circumstances, but more importantly, community members and other responders, and that’s across the state and not just urban areas,” Gamble added.
Evacuation orders were also issued for Rochester on the Campasbe River north of Melbourne, and the central Victorian towns of Caresbrooke and Seymour on the Goulburn River.
Authorities in New South Wales said 550 people were quarantined or evacuated from the town of Forbes as the Lachlan River flooded.
South of Forbes, parts of Wagga Wagga were evacuated because the Murrumbidji River broke its banks.
“Fortunately, the Murrumbidge River peaked on Thursday, and we’re starting to see the flood waters drop in those areas,” New South Wales State Emergency Service Officer Andrew Edmonds said.
In Tasmania, residents of the north coast were moving to higher ground as rivers were expected to rise, and the main port of Devonport was closed on Friday due to the flooding of the Mersey River.
The office said flood peaks in the Minder and Macquarie rivers in Tasmania are likely to be the highest on record.
The North Eske and Mersey rivers may peak around the same levels as during major floods in 2016, when three people drowned, the bureau said.
The bureau announced last month that a La Niña weather pattern, linked to above-average rain in eastern Australia, was underway in the Pacific.
The Bureau expected that the La Niña event would peak during the current Southern Hemisphere spring and return to neutral conditions early next year.
La Niña is the cooler side of the drying pattern known as El Niño. La Niña occurs when tropical trade winds become stronger, alter ocean surface currents and cause deeper waters to cool.
It’s the third La Niña event since 2019 became Australia’s hottest and driest year.
That year came to a disastrous outcome with wildfires fueled by drought that directly or indirectly killed more than 400 people, destroyed more than 3,000 homes and destroyed 19 million hectares (47 million acres) of forest, farmland, and city fringes.
Sydney, the capital of New South Wales and Australia’s largest city, last week broke the record set in 1950 to make 2022 the wettest year ever.
AOQ