On Sunday, Australian authorities told thousands of people in North Queensland state to move to higher ground because of the risk of floods from heavy rain.
Major flooding was happening in some areas of Cairns, Queensland. Cairns is a tourist hub with about 170,000 people and is about 1,700 km (1,060 miles) north of Brisbane, the state capital.
“Homes in these areas may continue to flood as the high tide gets closer and the rain keeps falling.” Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said on its website that people in certain parts of north Queensland should move to higher ground right now. This was one of several emergency alerts for the area.
Heavy rain from ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper caused the floods. Tens of thousands of people lost power and had to leave their homes because of the storm this week.
Australia’s weather forecaster said there would be “dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding” in Cairns, which is the entrance to the Great Barrier Reef. Later on Sunday, the water level could rise above the record high of 4.1 meters (13.45 feet) set in 1971.
A group called the Cairns Local Disaster Management Group said that homes, businesses, roads, and bridges were all flooded.
They said in a statement that people in the area might lose power, water, sewage, and phone service.
About 120 km north of Cairns, in the tourist town of Daintree Village, there was flooding. Since 9 a.m. on Saturday (2300 GMT on Friday), about 350 mm (13.8 inches) of rain had fallen, the weather forecaster said.
An ABC reporter talked to Dean Narramore, a meteorologist, who said that the weather system had stopped moving but could move west overnight, which would make it less rainy in Cairns and the surrounding areas.
Australia’s east has been hit by flooding a lot lately. In January, during a multi-year La Nina weather event, “once in a century” rains flooded the neighboring Northern Territory.
Right now, Australia is going through an El Nino weather event, which is usually linked to extreme weather like wildfires, storms, droughts, and heatwaves like the one that hit parts of the country on Saturday.
