Australia: Torrential rain ravages towns, thousands brace for isolation

SYDNEY: Torrential rain pummelled Australia’s southeast on Thursday, triggering flash flooding and forcing officials to issue fresh evacuation orders, while 50,000 residents were warned to prepare to isolate with more downpours expected over the next 24 hours.

Major flooding hit several rural towns in the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, with most of the Mid North Coast region facing further heavy rainfall through Thursday.

Police said the body of a 63-year-old man was found in a flooded home near Taree, more than 300 km north of Sydney. The rural town is one of the worst-hit by the floods, that have washed away farms and destroyed homes, roads and bridges.

“We’re bracing for more bad news in the next 24 hours. This natural disaster has been terrible for this community,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said during a media briefing.

Read more: North Korea: Kim Jong Un condemns warship accident as ‘criminal’

“There’s 140 flood warnings, 50,000 people are in the range where they have been asked to prepare to evacuate and could be isolated, and there’s been 9,500 properties in the direct vicinity. So, we’re far from out of the woods here.”

Two men and one woman have been reported missing in separate incidents, authorities said.

More than 100 schools were closed on Thursday, while thousands of properties remained without power.

A slow-moving coastal trough has dumped about four months of rain over the past two days, cutting off entire towns and stranding residents on roofs and the second storeys of their homes, as rescuers struggled to access the area by boat or air.

Minns apologised to people who had to wait for several hours for rescue crews, but assured efforts had been ramped up with 2,500 emergency services personnel being sent out.

Television images showed a woman winched to a helicopter from a flooded property, while several people were seen being rescued on boats.

Jason Herbert, the manager at a campground and boat shed in Port Macquarie, said the flooding was worse than he expected, and that it would take more time to assess damages.

“We prep for a moderate flood, which we can do. We lift fridges up over a metre, but they’ve all gone last night,” Herbert told ABC News.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology forecast that some areas could receive up to 200 mm (8 inches) of rain through Friday, triggering life-threatening flash flooding, before the weather system is expected to weaken and track south toward Sydney.