Kite surfers ride their boards over waves at Long Reef Beach in Sydney, Australia. The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning for heavy rain and damaging wind gusts across New South Wales
Credit: David Gray/ Getty Images AsiaPac
Parts of Australia’s Byron Bay’s famous coastline have been completely washed away by cyclone-style weather, authorities said on Monday, drawing fresh attention to the increasingly devastating effect of climate change on the country.
Main Beach at Byron Bay, a popular destination in northern New South Wales (NSW) state and home to Hollywood A-listers such as Chris Hemsworth, has all but disappeared, Byron Mayor Simon Richardson said on Monday.
Television news footage showed a concrete walkway along the beach collapsing into the sea.
Mayor Richardson said: "Right now around Byron, we’ve got some severe weather, massive swells, we’re watching our beach disappear.
"What we’ve got here is yet another event. An extreme weather event coming on the back of climate change that our community’s dealing with. It’s about the fourth or fifth major event in the last couple of years."
The heavy band of rain and wild winds, generated by an intense low pressure system off the southern Queensland coast, battered the heavily populated border regions between NSW and Queensland for the third day bringing more than 700 millimetres (27.6 inches) of rain in some places in the space of 48 hours.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) warned coastal erosion, hazardous rain and huge waves off the coast would continue throughout Monday and urged motorists to stay off the roads.
Queensland emergency services minister, Mark Ryan, told public broadcaster ABC: "Many of the impacts from this weather event will be similar to a category one cyclone event."
Australia is expecting a wetter than usual summer this year due to a La Nina weather phenomenon, typically associated with greater rainfall and more tropical cyclones.
BoM meteorologist Dean Narramore said: "Major coastal erosion is ongoing along numerous beaches in northeast (NSW) and southeast Queensland as spring tides combined with large waves and gale-force easterly winds eat away sand from beaches."
The erosion was "completely changing the entire landscape of the beaches" and creating potentially dangerous new rips – strong currents that move directly away from the shore – when the weather finally clears, said Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steve Pearce.
Pedestrians hold umbrellas during wet weather in Sydney, New South Wales
Credit: Peter Rae/Rex
When tourists descend on the region after the wet weather: "People will be going to beaches where they think it has been safe previously, but there will be new rips", he said.
"We’re seeing some of the largest coastal erosion we’ve seen in many, many years, particularly around the Byron Bay area," he added.
One local resident tweeted: “So sad to see Byron Bay’s beautiful beaches and coastal trees just being washed away, nature can be very cruel at times. This has never been so devastating before, the time to act on climate change is definitely right now.”
Scientists say climate change is fuelling more extreme weather in Australia – including droughts, bushfires and cyclones – that will only get worse as global temperatures rise.
The storms come just over a week after a heatwave swept through much of the region with temperatures having soared to 35C in some areas.
The heat saw fierce bushfires ravage more than half of Unesco World Heritage site Fraser Island in Queensland state in recent weeks.
Yet, by Monday, fire evacuation points on Fraser Island were underwater due to high tides and huge waves.
The country is one of the world’s leading fossil-fuel exporters and the conservative government has dragged its heels on reducing carbon emissions, in spite of recent polling showing Australians are increasingly concerned about climate change.
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