Military helicopters airlifted hundreds of people from communities cut off by “once in a century” floods in Australia’s northwest, an official leading relief efforts said yesterday, adding that water covered some places “as far as the eye could see.”
The crisis in the Kimberley — a sparsely populated area in Western Australia state about the size of California — was sparked last week by severe weather system Ellie, a former tropical cyclone that brought heavy rain.
“The water is everywhere,” Western Australia Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson told reporters in Perth. “People in the Kimberley are experiencing a one-in-100-year flood event, the worst flooding Western Australia has had in its history.”
Photo: Reuters / Callum Lamond
In some parts, he said flood waters stretched for 50km, with inundation “as far as the eye can see.”
The emergency comes after frequent flooding in Australia’s east over the past two years due to a multiyear La Nina weather event.
Some eastern regions have endured four major flood crises since last year caused by the La Nina system, which is typically associated with increased rainfall.
The town of Fitzroy Crossing, a community of about 1,300 people, has been among the worst hit, with supplies having to be airlifted in due to flooded roads.
Across the Kimberley, where about 50 percent of residents are Aboriginal, 233 people had so far been evacuated due to flooding, authorities said.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology yesterday said that rain had eased as the storm shifted eastward to the Northern Territory, but added that “record-breaking major flooding” continued in the Kimberley.
“Many roads are impassable and many communities are now isolated,” the forecaster said on its Web site.
The Fitzroy River hit 15.81m at Fitzroy Crossing on Wednesday, breaking its 2002 record of 13.95m, a bureau spokesperson said.
State emergency authorities have warned residents in other small communities of rising water in the region, which includes the resort town of Broome, about 2,000km north of Perth.
While the extent of flood damage was difficult to assess, authorities expected the recovery effort to take months.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday described the flooding as “devastating” and pledged federal assistance.
Australian Defence Force aircraft were being used to assist flood-hit communities, and Chinook helicopters were en route to help relocate residents, authorities said on Saturday.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS