Australia: Authorities are calling on 200,000 people to evacuate because of the storm

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floods in Australia

Photo: Peter Wallis/Getty Images

Eastern Australia is still struggling with the aftermath of the devastating rains of the past few days.

Around 200,000 people have been asked to evacuate their homes and seek safety, New South Wales Prime Minister Dominic Perrottet said.

Evacuation warnings have been issued for hundreds of thousands of other residents.

"Citizens are waking up this morning to the picture that much of our state is under water," Perrottet said, warning that "the situation here in our region is only going to get worse before it gets better."

The emergency services said they had been called to more than 3,000 operations within 24 hours, including in the metropolis of Sydney.

Warnings of further torrential rain around Sydney were lifted by the meteorologists in the afternoon (local time).

Water wreaks havoc

However, some areas west of Sydney along the Hawkesbury and Nepean rivers, which flow through the city's western suburbs, were hit by severe flooding.

In the historic town of Windsor, a bridge was submerged by the muddy waters of the Hawkesbury, cutting off access to houses and farms.

The town of Lismore was particularly hard hit by the aftermath of the storm, with the worst flooding in its history.

The clean-up work was underway here on Thursday.

Numerous buildings, shops and roads have been destroyed.

Mayor Steve Krieg also lost everything: his house and grocery store were devastated by the floodwaters.

"There are broken hearts all over this town, like mine," he said.

Annastacia Palaszczuk: "These are unprecedented times"

In neighboring Queensland, too, the situation will remain dangerous for at least 24 to 48 hours, said the state's Prime Minister, Annastacia Palaszczuk, adding: "These are unprecedented times.

I've lived in Brisbane all my life and I've never experienced storms and floods like this.«

At least 13 people have died in the historic flooding so far, ten in Queensland and three in New South Wales.

The extreme weather was triggered by a slow-moving low-pressure area.

In some areas it had rained as much in a few days as it normally does in a whole year.

bbr/dpa/AFP