Hundreds of thousands of people in the Australian state of Queensland were without electricity on Sunday after Alfred, a demoted tropical cyclone, brought damaging and heavy rains, arousing flood warnings.
Some 316,540 people were without electricity in southeast Queensland, where the Gold Coast City was the most affected region with more than 112,000 without electricity due to the storm system, Energex, energy distributor, in a statement.
The storm reached the Queensland coast on Saturday as a “tropical low” after 16 days as a cyclone, which caused preparations for millions of residents. The Brisbane state capital was spared the weight of the storm, which was also felt in the neighbor in the south of New South Wales.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday that “the situation in Queensland and northern South Wales remains very serious due to the flash and heavy praise winds”.
“Strong precipitation, harmful gusts of wind and impacts on coastal surfing should continue in the coming days,” SSAID Albanese told Canberra, in televised remarks by the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The country’s meteorology office said that high precipitation that could arouse sudden floods developed on Sunday and may have an impact on Brisbane as well as the Queensland regional centers of Ipswich, Sunshine Coast and Gympie, he said.
Damaged winds with gusts of approximately 90 kilometers per hour were also possible in the state, the office said on its website.
“It is now just a weak low because it continues to move more inside the lands in the southeast of Queensland, bringing a lot of rain,” said the meteorologist from the office Dean Narramore.
Brisbane airport reopened on Sunday, but posted on X that “the continuous weather can affect the calendar”.
Queensland will decide on Sunday to know if around 1,000 public schools, closed due to bad weather, will reopen on Monday, said Prime Minister David Crisafulli.
“Where it is sure to do so, schools will reopen with the exception of the Gold Coast, where there is important damage. Loss of electricity and transport problems,” said Crisafulli in the TV comments of Brisbane.
“One thing has remained consistent, and it is the community spirit and the resolution,” he said.
On Saturday, a man died in flood waters in northern Southern New Wales, while two Australian Defense Forces vehicles on the way to help residents of the City of Lismore were involved in a road collision who injured several officers, officials said.
