Helicopters were airdropping animal feed yesterday to farmers in Australia stranded by floods that have killed five and isolated tens of thousands in the country’s southeast.
Recovery was under way in the mid-north coast region of New South Wales (NSW) after days of flooding cut off towns, swept away livestock and destroyed homes. At least 10,000 properties might have been damaged in the floods, which were sparked by days of incessant rain, authorities estimate.
The floodwaters “trashed” Dan Patch’s house in rural Ghinni Ghinni near hard-hit Taree, and some cattle on the property have gone without food for days, he said.
Photo: New South Wales Police Force via AP
“It’s the worst we’ve ever seen,” Patch said. “It’s the worst everybody’s seen around this area.”
About 32,000 residents of Australia’s most populous state remained isolated due to floodwaters that were slowly starting to recede, the NSW State Emergency Service wrote on social media.
“The New South Wales government is providing emergency fodder, veterinary care, management advice and aerial support for isolated stock,” NSW Minister for Agriculture Tara Moriarty said in a statement.
Forty-three helicopter drops and about 130 drops by other means had provided “isolated farmers with emergency fodder for their stranded livestock,” she said.
At their peak, the floods isolated about 50,000 people, submerging intersections and street signs in mid-north coast towns and covering cars up to their windshields, after fast-rising waters burst river banks.
Five deaths have been linked to the floods, the latest a man in his 80s whose body was found at a flooded property about 50km from Taree, police said.
Taree sits along the Manning River more than 300km north of the state capital, Sydney.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday that conditions remained critical in flood-affected regions as clean-up efforts began.
Australia has been hit with increasing extreme weather events that experts say are the result of climate change. After droughts and devastating bushfires, frequent floods have wreaked havoc since early 2021.
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