Northeastern Australia is in danger of being flooded. Heavy rain turned duration in parts of the state of Queensland streets in torrents, thousands of people today had to leave their flooded homes – and there was no end in sight: The torrential rain could still go on for several days.
In some regions, two meters of rain fell within a few days – usually that is the rainfall of a whole year. Queensland’s Prime Minister Annastacia Palaszczuk spoke of an „event that only happens once every hundred years“. In the town of Townsville alone, 20,000 homes were threatened with flooding, and thousands were without electricity.
„Our basement is gone“
„The amount of water is simply incredible,“ said resident Chris Brookehouse the station ABC. „Our basement is gone, the refrigerator and the freezer floating in the water.“ If the water is still rising five or six steps, and the floor was flooded.
The tropical northeast of Australia is always very rainy at this time of the year. This year, however, the rain masses are particularly large: the reason is a monsoon low pressure area that moves only very slowly from the site and releases large amounts of precipitation. The Australian weather agency today assumed that the rains could continue for another three days.
