Grappling with heavy downpours and record-breaking floods, people in eastern Australia are becoming increasingly exasperated over slow relief and recovery efforts.
Thousands of people have been forced to abandon their homes and belongings after unprecedented torrential rains last month wreaked havoc in the states of Queensland and New South Wales (NSW).
The deluge, which has already claimed at least 18 lives, cut off towns and swept away farms, livestock, and roads in the eastern states.
“These are terrible, terrible floods,” Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison told radio station 2GB on Monday. “These are floods that we have not seen in living memory in anyone’s lifetime, and even before that. And so I can understand the great frustration (we are) seeing expressed”.
Morrison said more defense force personnel are being immediately dispatched to flood-affected areas to monitor the situation and lead the relief and recovery efforts.
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“We have had a week of no communications, no food, no fuel… it has been quite unnerving and emotional,” a resident in the NSW town of Murwillumbah told Australian broadcaster ABC.
Described as a “weather bomb”, the record-breaking and relentless deluge has affected many towns and cities in eastern Australia, with the death toll climbing to 18 on Monday.
Dominic Perrottet, NSW premier, during his tour of the flood-hit regions, said the recovery could take years with about 2,000 homes rendered uninhabitable by the deluge.
“The stories that we’ve heard, the sense of abandonment that many people had in devastating circumstances is heartbreaking, and we need to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
Thousands of people are now homeless and displaced because of the floods and Scott Morrison has the ADF doing mock clean-ups for the camera while he turns his attention to a nuclear submarine base that they won’t need for 30 years.
The Insurance Council of Australia has estimated the current cost of claims from the floods at $963 million. Insurers have till now received 86,703 claims, according to reports.
The weather bureau on Monday issued a “severe warning” for parts of NSW, including capital Sydney.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) forecast rains of up to 120 mm (5 inches) in Sydney on Monday and 150 mm Tuesday.
Several regions in Queensland, a northeastern state in Australia, saw a record level of rainfall in February following a nonstop downpour, submerging thousands of homes.
The country’s east coast has been affected by the La Nina weather pattern, which is associated with high rainfall.
