(Bloomberg) — A key tourism area in Australia’s far north has been inundated with life-threatening flooding after days of torrential rainfall in the wake of a tropical cyclone.
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Major flood and strong wind warnings have been issued across several areas in Queensland state by the Bureau of Meteorology, with river levels reaching more than 10 meters (33 feet) high in some areas.
Drinkable water was expected to run out in Cairns in a matter of hours, Mayor Terry Copeland said early Monday, urging people to conserve. The airport of the city of about 170,000 people, which is a major tourist destination that acts as doorway to the Great Barrier Reef, has been closed since Sunday, with some aircraft underwater.
There are nine people — including a sick child — stranded on the roof of a clinic in an Aboriginal community with crocodiles circling in the flood waters below, Kylie Hanslow, CEO of the Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Monday morning.
“I think they’d be cold, and they’d been wet,” she said. “It would’ve been a very long night for them.”
Up to 150 emergency service personnel plus equipment was being transported to Cairns, and emergency helicopter support and personnel were to evacuate isolated residents, Australian agriculture minister Murray Watt wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
‘Billion-Dollar Impact’
The airport received more than 300 millimeters (11.8 inches) in about 24 hours to Monday morning, while other areas received double that amount, according to bureau data.
“People are stressed, worried and they don’t want to see any more water, but the word is it won’t dissipate until tomorrow,” Copeland said on the ABC. “It is a race against time.”
Queensland Treasurer Cameron Dick told the ABC Monday the flooding would have a “billion-dollar impact” due to the impact on the state’s property sector and general economy.
The flooding comes after Tropical Cyclone Jasper was downgraded late last week after bringing destructive winds and heavy rainfall to the region. The cyclone first made landfall on the Australian coast on Wednesday as a category 2 system.
Australia has grappled with an increasing number of extreme weather events from bushfires to storms, while the onset of an El Niño weather event is expected to exacerbate hot and dry conditions in much of the country. The nation’s cyclone season typically runs from November to April.
(Updates with latest government comment.)
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