Flash floods sweep away houses, cars in Australian town, Following flash floods that engulfed a tiny Australian town, entire structures have been torn from their foundations. Disaster management experts on Wednesday referred to the inundation as a catastrophic “wall of water.” Located around 350 kilometers (220 miles) west of Sydney, the town of Eugowra was flooded on Monday, but it has been impossible to determine the extent of the damage because of the mud-brown waters.
Flash floods sweep away houses, cars in Australian town
Due to back-to-back La Nina cycles, Australia’s east coast has experienced heavy rainfall on numerous occasions over the past two years. Response teams were returning to the 800-person town, according to Steve Hall, spokesman for the New South Wales State Emergency Service.
“Everything they hold dear has been swept away in a wall of water,” he said.
“All their possessions are covered in water and mud, they’ve got to come back and start all over, working through all the processes of grief, and loss and anger.”
On Monday evening, as floodwaters reached their highest point, stranded residents huddled on roofs before being winched to safety by rescue helicopters. Cars swept up in the floods were “strewn” throughout the area, according to local MP Andrew Gee, and some buildings had been “picked up from their foundations and washed down streets.”
“The residents talk about a tsunami coming at them,” he told ABC, the country’s national broadcaster.
Following significant rainfall on Sunday night, the Wyangala Dam burst its banks, releasing about 230,000 megalitres into water catchments close to Eugowra on Monday. As the floodwaters moved down the swollen river system, the town of Forbes, which is located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Eugowra, was evacuated.
Following Tuesday night’s flooding at the Plainsman Motel in Forbes, about 14 people needed to be rescued. It was the second time in the last two weeks that Forbes had to be evacuated due to water. More than 20 people lost their lives in a catastrophic flooding disaster on Australia’s east coast earlier this year as a result of powerful storms.
When floods once more inundated the city’s outskirts in July, tens of thousands of Sydney residents were told to leave. Because warmer air holds more moisture, climate scientists think that extreme flooding events could become more common.