Hundreds of houses were flooded this Friday in southeastern Australia due to the heavy rains that hit the countrywhere the authorities issued evacuation orders for thousands of people in the face of an episode that “is far from over.”
The most complicated situation occurred in the state of Victoria, the second most populous in the country, where a state of emergency was declared and where the rains forced the evacuation of residents of a central Melbourne district.
In the suburb of Maribyrnong, floodwaters washed away abandoned cars on the streets, while some residents had to be saved with the help of inflatable boats.
“At the moment, our house is under water, which reaches waist level,” Leah Caluzzi, a resident of this suburb, told AFP. According to the head of state of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, more than 500 houses were “flooded” and another 500 properties are cut off from emergency services.
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Showers are far from over
“That figure will certainly grow,” he said on Friday. “It has been a very, very significant episode of flooding and it is far from over,” he warned ABC Radio. Although the worst of the rains were behind them on Friday morning, the state emergency service warned that the flooding would worsen as the water flowed into the swollen river basins.
Few parts of the state will be spared “major flooding in the coming days,” said emergency services spokesman Tim Wiebusch.
According to Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp, the military was mobilized to help residents protect their homes. “This is a huge emergency for the state of Victoria,” he said.
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The regional government, in turn, was preparing to reopen a quarantine center for covid-19 patients to house people whose houses became uninhabitable. They are also preparing for floods in the state of Tasmania, an island south of the state of Victoria, and in New South Wales, the country’s most populous region.
Authorities ordered mass evacuations and so far, the rains have forced the closure of about 120 roads. “Lives are at risk” from the flooding, Tasmania’s state emergency service warned in a statement.
Australia’s east coast has repeatedly received heavy rainfall over the past two years. In March, catastrophic flooding caused more than 20 deaths. And in Sydney in July, thousands of residents were also ordered to evacuate due to flooding.
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