Australia is again suffering from the ill effects of climate change, with people in the southeastern part of the country, including Melbourne, being asked to evacuate as heavy rains triggered flash floods.Thousands of people across Australia’s southeast were asked to evacuate their homes on Friday, including some in a western suburb of Melbourne, after two days of incessant rains triggered flash flooding and fast-moving waters burst river banks.
Large parts of Victoria state, southern New South Wales and the northern regions of the island state of Tasmania were pounded by an intense weather system with some taking more than a month’s worth of rain since late Wednesday, officials said.
“Our river systems… are reaching major flood levels at various times over today, through the weekend and through next week,” Victoria emergency services chief operations officer Tim Wiebusch told reporters.
