- Disasters: Australia passes from fires to floods due to torrential rains
- NASA: The smoke from the fires of Australia goes around the Earth
After fire and floods, dust storms shake Australia. A cloud of more than 200 kilometers wide "swept" the interior of New South Wales, the state most affected by the wave of fires that have caused at least 28 deaths and has affected more than 10.7 million hectares. The dust almost completely covered populations such as Dubbo, Broken Hill, Nyngan and Parkes.
The images recorded by the neighbors show the relentless advance of the dust storm, generated by the action of winds of more than 100 kilometers per hour, by removing agricultural soils affected by recent fires in the central area of New South Wales. According to eyewitnesses, the huge cloud covered the sky for hours and created a feeling of permanent night, amidst apocalyptic scenes.
The Australian capital, Canberra, suffered in the meantime a historic hail storm, with flakes the size of golf balls, capable of breaking the windshields of cars. The relative relief brought by the rains in recent days has given way to fear of the effects of floods and episodes of extreme weather, which could extend between Monday and Tuesday to Sydney and Newcastle.
Tom Swann, a researcher at the Australian Institute in Canberra, alerted CNN statements of damage to populations of cockatoos, executioners and other local birds. It is estimated that more than a third of Koala populations have been able to perish in the more than 200 fires that were detected in New South Wales and Victoria, where there are still at least eight active fires.
In Victoria there were more than 1,500 emergency calls for floods after the torrential rains of the weekend. The civil protection authorities warned about the risks of tree falls and landslides in the areas affected by the fires, which far exceed the extent of Andalusia.
The images of dust storms have triggered again the alarms about the domino effect of natural disasters caused by the extreme temperatures experienced by Australia last year (49.9 degrees in Nullarbor) and the situation created by one of the Longest droughts in one of the areas with the greatest natural wealth in the country. It is estimated that the fires may have affected 480 million animals and dozens of threatened species.
" Southeast Australia is on fire for one simple reason: the temperature on Earth is rising, " British naturalist David Attenborough has warned. "What is happening should help us wake up: we are in the real moment of climate change crisis."
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