Northern Territory aircraft are struggling to deliver food to flood-affected remote communities as torrential rains are luring swarms of insects into central Australian outback towns.
Several Indigenous communities west of Alice Springs, including Kintore, Kiwirrkurra, Willowra and Nyirripi, have been cut off by heavy rainfall and need food supplies to be flown in.
But some dirt airstrips in the region have become too wet to land safely and conditions in Alice Springs are too dismal for takeoff. “We can’t see the mountain ranges at all today, we’re going to have to delay flights out of here,” Chartair’s Robyn Lelliott said.
“Kiwirrkurra is one of the most isolated communities in the world – they are so reliant on our services. The next couple of days are not looking good for flying.”
The planes will carry about 700kg of frozen foods and staples for each community trip, and pilots are hoping for strong winds to dry the runways.
Some resident of Beswick, near Katherine, are being evacuated to higher ground, with minor flooding along the Waterhouse river.
The deluge has caused a goldmine north of Katherine to release contaminated water, with the nearby Edith river flowing at a high enough rate to dilute it. A minor flood warning is now in place for the Katherine Gorge. Several Arnhem Land communities are now islands.
Meanwhile, thousands of grasshoppers have descended on Alice Springs and the surrounding desert region after the recent storms.
The Arid Lands Environment Centre says the growth of the extremely flammable buffel grass weed, a key threat to native biodiversity and bushfires, has also risen.
“Drenched deserts means burning deserts in the next six to 12 months,” said the centre’s director, Jimmy Cocking.
“We’ve got explosions in grasshoppers, snakes, scorpions, rats and mosquito numbers. We’ve had warnings about deadly mud disease (melioidosis) and Murray Valley encephalitis as a result of the high rainfall.”
The rainfall recorded this wet season has already topped the total from last year, but this week Darwin registered 150mm in 24 hours – the wettest day in five years.
Conditions are gradually easing, but Territorians will still need an umbrella to have a hit of cricket or a barbecue this Australia Day, with showers predicted for most of the Top End.
On Tuesday a coalition of Indigenous environment groups called for fire management preparation to begin now, as the heavy rains had caused an explosion in vegetation growth and a big fire event was now likely.
