Emergency declared for Australia floods

CANBERRA－Australia declared a national emergency on Wednesday in response to devastating floods along its east coast, and designated catastrophe zones in towns swept away by swollen rivers.

The emergency declaration, which was set up after Australia's destructive 2019 bushfires, will help cut red tape and speed up aid amid criticism about a slow response to the floods in which at least 21 people have died.

Frustrated residents in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, with no access to power and internet for several days, have blamed authorities for the slow speed and scale of relief efforts.

If community members had not stepped up, "we would have been seeing a death toll in the hundreds of people", opposition emergency management spokesman Murray Watt told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Scores of protesters in flood-wrecked Lismore vented their fury on Wednesday as Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited the heart of the disaster zone.

Demonstrators demanded more help and stronger climate action as Morrison toured Lismore, which endured some of the worst floodings in a near two-week deluge along the east coast.

"We need help!" protesters chanted as Morrison visited the city.

Many of them held placards with messages blaming the climate crisis including: "Coal and gas did this "and "This is what climate change looks like".

While rain has eased in recent days, 40,000 people around New South Wales had been ordered to evacuate, including dozens of Sydney suburbs.

Sydney Trains has warned of significant disruption and delays and is advising commuters to avoid nonessential travel and to work from home if possible.

Disease warned

Experts have warned that catastrophic flooding on Australia's east coast could exacerbate the country's outbreak of Japanese encephalitis, a virus spread through the bite of an infected mosquito to humans, horses and pigs.

It can cause inflammation of the brain, nausea, high fever and death.

Ava Easton, chief executive of international peak body the Encephalitis Society, warned that mosquitoes carrying JE "will be proliferating" amid the floods in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.

"Encephalitis is a code red condition that remains underrecognized," she told the Australian Associated Press.

"As Australia faces ongoing extreme weather conditions, we are urging all Australians to equip themselves with knowledge about this very real disease and to not dismiss it as a low-risk probability or something too rare to talk about."

Australian farmers have also warned that the country's food supply is at an increasing risk of being impacted by climate change.

According to a report published by Farmers for Climate Action on Wednesday, Australia's food supply chain is more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought.

Agencies - Xinhua