Australia’s weather forecaster yesterday predicted heavy rain for large swaths of country’s flood-hit south and east, as a flood crisis continues in the two most populous states.
The week-long emergency in New South Wales and Victoria comes as Australia endures a third straight La Nina weather event, bringing heavy rains.
Flooding has killed five people, prompted thousands of requests for assistance and led to hundreds of people being rescued from rising waters.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology yesterday issued a severe weather warning for a 320km stretch of the north coast of New South Wales, including Lismore, the region’s center.
Lismore was among the localities worst hit by devastating floods that hit Australia’s east in March, killing at least 13 and forcing tens of thousands to be evacuated.
The forecaster predicted rainfall for the region, which also includes Byron Bay, to total as much as 300mm within 24 hours.
Photo: Reuters
“Locally intense rainfall which may lead to dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding is also possible during this period,” the agency said on its Web site.
There were 122 flood warnings in place for New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state. Inundations were forecast to be worst in the northeast near Moree and on the southern border near the town of Moama, about 780km from Sydney.
Footage supplied by emergency services showed large parts of Moree, a town of about 7,500 people, submerged and people being dragged to safety from flooded rivers in other parts of the state.
Across the border, Victoria had 67 flood warnings, with parts of Kerang and nearby Echuca — a town of 15,000 on the Murray River — urged to evacuate.
The river, Australia’s longest, had risen to about 94.80m above sea level yesterday, similar to devastating 1993 flood levels, and was expected to reach a peak of about 95m later in the day.
About 750 people have been rescued across the state in the past 10 days, the Victoria State Emergency Service said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday said 150 Australian Defence Force personnel were assisting in New South Wales and 350 troops in Victoria.
Last weekend, Albanese was joined by Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews when he toured flood-hit parts of the state after suburbs near the central business district of the state capital, Melbourne, were flooded.
Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Friday said that the widespread floods would dent Australia’s economic growth and increase inflation.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
RSS