INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Parts of Australia's east coast have been hit with heavy rain, forcing evacuations, power cuts and school closures - but it also brought one
piece of very good news.Eight flood evacuation orders were issued for towns, including Narrabeen Lagoon, Moorebank, Chipping Norton and
Milperra, and a number of flood warnings were also issued.The New South Wales Bureau of Meteorology said Sydney had seen 391.6mm of rain in
four days - the wettest since 414.2mm fell between 2-5 February 1990.The State Emergency Service said it had received more than 2,700 calls
for help on Sunday night, with 10,000 since Wednesday.Spokesman Andrew Richards said the number was a record, adding: "Couple that with
gale-force winds off the coast, large 6-metre (20ft) waves, the coastline's getting pretty hammered as well with the high tides and king
tides."More than 60 schools were closed on Monday and one power company in Sydney's greater west and on the south coast said it was working
to restore power to almost 20,000 properties.The Insurance Council of Australia declared the weekend a "catastrophe" with around 10,000
claims lodged, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.But there was some good news: the rain had helped extinguish one of the state's
worst bushfires - Currowan in the Shoalhaven region on the south coast.The fire, which was started by a lightning strike, burned for 74
days, destroying 312 homes and razing nearly 500,000 hectares of land.But the Shoalhaven region received more than 100mm of rain in recent
days, which helped to damp down the last of the bushfire.Image:A dog being saved from the Currowan fire near Nowra in JanuaryThere are still
33 bushfires burning in New South Wales but they are all at the lowest warning level and most are in the path of the rain.The bushfires were
made more devastating by the drought that has gripped parts of Australia for years, also leaving the land unable to absorb the levels of
rainfall it has seen over recent days.Since September, the bushfires in Australia have killed 33 people and an estimated one billion native
animals.More than 2,500 homes and 11.7 million hectares were also destroyed.
