Sydney is sinking! Dams failed, rivers burst their banks due to heavy rains

Thousands of residents have been ordered to evacuate southwest Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, with torrential rain and damaging winds pounding the east coast and floods expected to be worse than those that hit the region in the past year. Heavy rain and overflowing dams and rivers all combined to threaten flash floods and landslides along the east coast from Newcastle to Batemans Bay in New South Wales state on Sunday, and rain was expected to intensify in the night. More than 200mm (8 inches) of rain have fallen over many areas, with some hit by as much as 350mm (13.8 inches), the Bureau of Meteorology said, warning of flood risks along the Nepean and Hawkesbury Rivers. The volume of rainfall is almost half of Sydney’s annual average. Australia has been at the sharp end of climate change, with droughts, deadly bushfires, bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef and floods becoming more common and intense as global weather patterns change. Camden in southwest Sydney was underwater, and the we