Floods devastate eastern Australia days after bushfires

Emergency services warned people to flee floods threatening more than 130 homes in eastern Australia Thursday in a region swept by bushfires just 48 hours earlier.

Heavy rains had swollen the McAllister River in the eastern state of Victoria, threatening rural homes, said David Baker, deputy chief of the state’s emergency service.

“We estimate up to around 130 properties may be impacted by this event, hence why we issued an emergency warning,” he said.

Emergency services issued warnings overnight for people to move to higher ground or to stay away from high-risk areas near the McAllister and other flooded rivers in Victoria’s Gippsland region east of Melbourne.

Two days earlier, firefighters were battling bushfires across thousands of hectares elsewhere in Gippsland, forcing evacuations in more than a dozen rural neighbourhoods.

After several wet years, experts are expecting the coming Australian summer to bring the most intense bushfire season since 2019-2020.

During that “Black Summer”, bushfires raged across Australia’s eastern seaboard, razing swathes of forest, killing millions of animals and blanketing cities in smoke.