SYDNEY, March 15 (Reuters) – Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday that troops would be deployed to help communities hit by a days-long flood emergency in the country’s north.
Albanese said the centre-left government had approved deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel to help communities around the flood-hit Northern Territory town of Katherine, about 264km (164 miles) south of territory capital Darwin.
“To everyone doing it tough right now, know we are with you through the response and through the recovery,” Albanese said on social media platform X.
Emergency Services Minister Kristy McBain said in televised remarks that the troops would be deployed for up to 14 days.
Authorities, grappling with floods sparked by heavy rain in the Northern Territory and neighbouring Queensland state, said this week they recovered two bodies in a search for two Chinese backpackers who went missing in floods in Queensland’s Gympie region.
Climate change is causing heavy short-term rainfall events to become more intense in Australia, the country’s science agency has previously said.
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
