SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australian authorities started clean-up efforts on Saturday after floods claimed five lives and inundated more than 10,000 properties in the country’s southeast.
The New South Wales emergency services agency said damage assessments were under way in the state for the mid-north coast region after the floods that cut off towns, swept away livestock and destroyed homes this week.
“Early estimates indicate at least 10,000 properties may have been damaged following record flooding,” the agency said in a statement. Conditions had improved since Friday in the impacted areas of Australia’s most populous state, it said.
Even so, hundreds of flood-hit residents were still in evacuation centres, State Emergency Services commissioner Mike Wassing said at a media conference in Sydney, with 52 flood rescues being made overnight.
The latest flood-linked death was that of a man in his 80s, whose body was found at a flooded property about 50 km (31 miles) from Taree, one of the worst-hit towns, police said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, forced on Friday to cancel a trip to Taree due to floodwaters, said it was “awful to hear the news of more loss of life”.
“All of our thoughts are with his loved ones and the community at this time,” Albanese said in a statement.
The floods, sparked by days of incessant rain, submerged intersections and street signs in mid-north coast towns and covered cars up to their windshields, after fast-rising waters burst river banks. At their peak, the floods isolated around 50,000 people.
Australia has been hit with more extreme weather events that some experts say are the result of climate change. After droughts and devastating bushfires at the end of last decade, frequent floods have wreaked havoc since early 2021.
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney and Peter Hobson in Canberra; Editing by Tom Hogue)
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