This year’s floods in Australia have claimed the lives of at least 27 people and destroyed or damaged well over 28,000 houses
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskShe was rescued by boat and deposited on a neighbour’s roof. At least her house, now patched up with blankets and election billboards for walls, is still standing, she bravely notes. The house next door is in a crumpled heap. Another was washed away.
Brisbane received almost a year’s worth of rain in five days last February, costing A$656m in damage. Suburbs west of Sydney were subsumed in July for the fourth time in 18 months. Vast quantities of water recently gushed through the Murray-Darling basin, a giant river system in eastern Australia, swallowing several towns. This year’s floods have claimed the lives of at least 27 people and destroyed or damaged well over 28,000 houses.
But as the cost of climate-related damage rises, it is becoming harder to ignore. According to the Climate Council, an advocacy group, about one in 25 Australian homes could be uninsurable due to excessive flood risk by 2030. One solution is for governments to “buy back” untenable homes in order to take them off the market. In October state and federal governments launched an A$800m “resilience” fund that will buy 2,000 properties in northern New South Wales from people facing a “catastrophic risk to life”. The fund will also provide money for owners to raise or waterproof their flooring. A similar scheme, of A$740m, has been established in Queensland.
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