Thousands of residents were ordered to evacuate southwest Sydney, Australia's biggest city, on Sunday 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, and rain was expected to intensify on Sunday night.
