At least six people have been killed in floods caused by decades of heavy rains in eastern Australia, which have been raging since the beginning of the week and heading south, officials said Sunday.
A 34-year-old man has been killed after his car was swept away by floodwaters in Queensland, police say.
The man escaped from the vehicle and tried to swim to safety. His body was found shortly afterwards, bringing the death toll to six.
The buildings were all submerged
It has been raining heavily in eastern Australia for almost a week, with entire buildings submerged, roads flooded and cars swept away.
The Brisbane mayor described the weather event as “a bomb blast over southeastern Queensland”.
Queensland’s Prime Minister Annastasia Balaschuk has urged Brisbane residents to stay home as it rains in the south of the state, where many residential areas are located, on Sunday.
He warned that more than 1,400 homes in Brisbane were at risk of flooding, with more than 300 mm of rain reported in some areas in the past 24 hours.
A man who went missing
Police are still searching for a 70 – year – old man who fell into the Brisbane River on Friday.
After years of drought and bushfires intensified by climate change, eastern Australia experienced unusually humid summers due to La Nina, a climatic phenomenon arising from the tropical surface water thermal anomalies of the Pacific Ocean.
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