Australia Outback Lashed by Year’s Worth of Rain in Week, With Many Livestock Killed

Australia’s remote outback in western Queensland has been swamped by flooding after being lashed with a year’s worth of rainfall in a week, sweeping away tens of thousands of livestock.

Up to 500 millimeters (19.7 inches) of rain has flooded an area about the size of Texas over the past week, exceeding the annual rainfall average and triggering the worst floods in half a century in some areas, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

About 100,000 cattle and sheep are estimated to be dead or missing so far, the Queensland government said Tuesday. Total fencing damage is estimated at about 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles), while more than 4,000 kilometers of private roads have been impacted.

The floods come as the country continues to grapple with the fallout from Cyclone Alfred, which hit Queensland’s southeast coast and northern New South Wales last month. The nation’s top scientific research body has flagged a higher risk for more intense bursts of heavy rain as global warming continues to increase the frequency of extreme weather events.

Showers and thunderstorms are expected across much of northern, central and parts of southern Queensland state on Tuesday, increasing throughout the day, bureau meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said in a video forecast.

Moderate to locally heavy falls are still possible — particularly where severe thunderstorms develop across those central parts of the state — and damaging wind gusts are a risk inland, Bradbury said. The rain is also starting to push into far north New South Wales, she said.

“It is across a fairly remote part of Australia, but over the next few days will push into more populated parts of the southern Northern Territory, and from there, across the eastern states,” Jonathan How, a bureau meteorologist, said in a filmed update.