our torrential downpours lashed
australia's east coast on monday
forcing thousands to flee the worst
flooding in decades
around 18 000 residents were told to
evacuate their homes
as days of relentless rainfall caused
rivers in australia's most populous
state
new south wales to rise to their highest
levels in 30 years
emergency warnings are in place across
the state including port macquarie
kempsey and sydney's west
heavy rains are expected to continue
until wednesday the bbc's shyama khalil
has been to the flood-stricken areas
and sent us this report
this is what days of relentless downpour
looks like
a deluge not seen in five decades here
in new south wales
emergency services have been inundated
with nearly 10
000 calls and have conducted more than
500 rescues so far
and this is what they're up against
water's so high and forceful
a three-bedroom cottage was seen
floating through
crews have also been called in to get
stranded cattle to safety
in the town of windsor northwest of
sydney residents are used to floods this
time of year
but nothing like this it's very shocking
because i haven't seen it like this
before
in 1990 was the last time that i
remember having a really big flood
it's hard to tell this is the newly
built windsor bridge
it's barely a year old and was meant to
withstand heavy flooding
this is how swollen the hawkesbury river
gotcha can hardly make out
the windsor bridge and with more rain
forecast over the next few days things
are set to get much worse
before they get better thousands of
families have already evacuated with
many more ready to go
for days now the wassens have been on
high alert
they tell me they hardly slept in the
past 24 hours
as they watched the waters inch ever
closer to their property
and submerged the whole of their back
garden
it's normally completely green and
floats down to a dam
but now it's completely inundated in the
distance we can just see farmland
but now we just see water
it's not the first natural disaster to
hit these areas in the past year
some communities who were battered by
the bushfires are now being battered by
the floods
and deep drought prior to that and i
don't know any time in our state's
history when we've had these extreme
weather conditions
many families will spend the night in
evacuation centers
and with the rainfall showing no sign of
letting up
there is no telling when they'll be able
to get back to their homes
shai mahalil bbc news windsor new south
wales
well here's our bbc weather reporter
chris
fawkes with a look at the forecast in
new south wales for the next few days
the rain really started coming down
heavily on thursday last week and since
then
some areas have seen over 900
millimeters of rain so that's not far
off a meters worth of rain
very wet as well in sydney city center
with 264 millimeters
over the last seven days now this
weather system
as i say was stalled it was a trough
that developed a line of thunderstorms
and because the winds in the atmosphere
didn't change direction
so those severe thunderstorms just kept
feeding in day after day hitting the
same kind of area
but now we're looking at a next area of
low pressure crossing australia
combining with that trough in the east
to bring a final bout of very heavy rain
across those same flood hit areas so
more very heavy rain across new south
wales
as the low pressure swings eastwards
we'll start to get some pretty gusty
north-easterly winds these combining
with high tides
that will effectively stop the rivers
from removing that flood water
so the flooding is likely to get worse
before it gets better
in a number of communities so more
extreme rainfall around there's a risk
of some landslides
as well but the rain should start to
ease away
by wednesday but the flood waters will
take days to gradually drain away
bbc weather there