Tens of thousands evacuated in Australia as heavy rains close in on Sydney

Sydney, March 2 (BNA): Tens of thousands of Australians fled their homes and authorities evacuated a hospital on Wednesday as torrential rain continued on the country’s east coast.

Eleven people have died since the severe weather arrived late last week, inundating city centers and dismantling homes and cutting power lines.

A wild storm cell was making its way from Queensland into neighboring New South Wales and was expected to hit Sydney, which is home to more than 5 million people, later on Wednesday.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by this event,” New South Wales Emergency Services Minister Stephanie Cook told ABC on Wednesday morning. “It is by no means over,” Reuters said.

Sydney residents should brace for months of rain in a few hours, the Bureau of Meteorology said, as officials reported that the Warragamba Dam, the city’s main water source for Sydney, began flooding Wednesday morning.

The country’s Bureau of Meteorology warned that Sydney and its surrounding areas could receive up to 200 mm (8 inches) of rain in the six hours after that day. Sydney’s average rainfall for March is 138 mm, according to official data.

In the northern town of Ballina, the main hospital was evacuated, ahead of an expected peak in floodwaters. In Lismore, a town a little further north that was hit hard on Tuesday, residents waited for water levels to recede enough to allow emergency services to reach them with emergency supplies.

NSW emergency teams carried out 300 flood rescues after receiving 2,200 requests for help overnight. Military helicopters carried stranded people off rooftops, while motorists and stranded animals were rescued from a bridge after waters rose so quickly that its ends flooded.

Cassie Skillings, who hung on the bridge with her sister, niece and nephew, told 2GB radio that a local resident had rescued them in his boat.

“It was just a mess, as soon as the shipping containers started hitting the bridge, I called the triple number and they said there was nothing they could do,” she said.

HF