FILE - This image from video shows flooded fields on Gold Coast, Australia, Jan. 18, 2020. More heavy rain lashed parts of Australia’s New South Wales and Queensland states on Jan. 26, causing flash floods, while wildfires kept burning elsewhere.
MELBOURNE - Australia’s bushfire-stricken state of Queensland saw heavy rainfalls on Sunday that dampened some of the fires that have razed 2.5 million hectares (1.2 million acres) since September, but the wet weather caused major flooding.
Some areas received a quarter of the annual average rainfall, according to Reuters’ calculations, with the state’s Bureau of Meteorology saying coastal areas experienced up to 160 millimeters (6.3 inches) of rain in the 24-hour period ending at 9 a.m. on Sunday.
“More rain expected over the coming days,” the bureau said on Twitter.
Several people were rescued from floodwaters and some bridges and causeways were closed, but no severe damage had been reported.
Recent rains across drought-hit Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales states have substantially dampened many of the hundreds of bushfires that have burned an area nearly the size of Greece and killed 33 people and millions of animals since September.