Most major metropolis of Australia is in the grip of torrential rains. Roads have been blocked and at least 18 evacuation orders are in effect in the west of the city.
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Torrential rain falls on the outskirts of Australia’s largest metropolis. Thousands of Sydney residents were called on Sunday July 3 by authorities to evacuate their homes in the face of the threat of flooding. Roads have been blocked and at least 18 evacuation orders are in effect in the west of the city.
“This is a life-threatening emergency”, alerted Stephanie Cooke, Minister of Emergency Services for the State of New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital. With further bad weather expected in the coming days, she described a “situation which is rapidly changing”. Warragamba Dam, located west of Sydney, began to overflow in the early hours of Sunday morning.
In Camden, a southwestern suburb of Sydney home to more than 100,000 people, shops and a petrol station were already inundated. Emergency services have rescued 29 people and been called more than 1,400 times in the past 24 hours.
Australia is particularly affected by climate change, regularly hit by droughts, devastating forest fires, not to mention repeated and increasingly intense floods. In March, flooding caused by severe storms devastated Western Sydney and claimed 20 lives.