SYDNEY, Australia: Flood-hit areas of Western Australia had a long way to recover on Thursday as muddy waters receded to reveal the full scale of the recent damage to homes, roads and livestock.
In the submerged town of Fitzroy Crossing – home to about 1,000 people – the main bridge collapsed, road surfaces were washed away and homes were damaged in the past week.
The flood created a vast inland lake in the northern part of Western Australia, as well as swamping Fitzroy Crossing and Indigenous communities in a sparsely populated area.
“I don’t want to sugar-coat the challenge ahead, both in terms of housing and road construction,” the state’s housing minister, John Kerry, said on Wednesday, according to public broadcaster ABC.
“We’ve got people in the house.”
According to the Kimberley Pilbara Cattlemen’s Association, thousands of cattle are estimated to have died in the region’s vast farms.
“The impact on pastoral stations is going to be significant,” state Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis warned Thursday.
“We really won’t know the full impact for several months.”
The flood-prone Kimberley region covers a land area three times that of the United Kingdom, but has a population of less than 40,000.
Australia has experienced repeated heavy rains over the past two years, driven by frequent La Niña climate cycles.
Flash floods hit parts of eastern Australia in November last year, tearing entire houses off their foundations in some country towns.
Thousands of Sydney residents were ordered to evacuate in July when floods swamped the coastal city’s shores.
And in March an east coast flood disaster – caused by storms in Queensland and New South Wales – killed more than 20 people.
