Record Floods Devastate Eastern Australia

This frame grab from a handout video footage taken between May 21 and 22, 2025 and released on May 22, 2025 by the New South Wales (NSW) Police Force shows a police helicopter rescue in flooded areas near the NSW town of Taree. Rising floodwaters stranded more than 50,000 people in eastern Australia on Thursday, as torrential rain pummelled water-logged towns for a second day and engorged rivers swallowed roads, leaving two dead. (Credit: AFP)

Record floods cut a destructive path through eastern Australia on Friday, caking houses in silt, washing out roads and separating 50,000 people from help.

Four bodies have been pulled from vast tides of floodwater engulfing parts of northern New South Wales, a fertile region of rivers and valleys some 400 kilometres (250 miles) up the coast from Sydney.