More than 120 firefighters battled a major blaze at a multi-level building in central Sydney today. Multiple calls to emergency services were received when flames started engulfing the seven-storey building on Randle Street just after 4pm, Fire and Rescue NSW said. Firefighters, from 30 fire trucks and multiple stations, had …
Read More »Sydney residents sandbag houses as heavy rain brings flash flooding, prompts rescues
Heavy rain brought flash flooding to Australia’s largest city Sydney on Sunday, prompting rescues and residents to sandbag houses, as authorities warned of bad weather ahead. Emergency authorities received 50 calls for assistance, mostly for sandbagging of properties and help plugging leaking roofs, from residents in Sydney, the capital of …
Read More »Australian PM calls May 21 general election
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative coalition trails Labor in opinion polls after nine years in power. Australia will hold a general election on May 21, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says, triggering a campaign expected to be fought over cost-of-living pressures, climate change, and questions of trust and competence of the …
Read More »Sydney flooding: Evacuations as Australian city receives a month’s rain in one night
Heavy rain triggered evacuation orders in Sydney on Thursday, as swollen rivers threatened homes and flooded roads in the latest wild weather to lash Australia’s east. Residents in several suburbs of Sydney’s south and southwest were told to leave for safety as fast-flowing rivers rose. “We have seen exceptionally sharp, …
Read More »More than 1,000 people in Sydney, Melbourne protest Australia’s climate policy
More than 1,000 people demonstrated on Saturday in Australia’s biggest cities of Sydney and Melbourne to protest against the government’s climate policies and the strategies it offered at a UN climate summit in Glasgow. Sydney’s first legal protest after a months-long COVID-19 lockdown saw about 1,000 people march in support …
Read More »Australia to ease international border COVID-19 restrictions from November
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday announced an 18-month ban on Australians traveling abroad will be lifted from next month, easing one of the toughest COVID-19 restrictions imposed globally. Reopening the international border for citizens and permanent residents will be linked to the establishment of home quarantine in Australia’s …
Read More »Sydney records deadliest day of COVID-19 pandemic, Melbourne lockdown extended
Australia’s biggest city of Sydney recorded its deadliest day of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday as troops and police set up roadblocks to limit the movement of people, while Melbourne faced a nightly curfew and a further two weeks of lockdown. Sydney, which is in its eighth week of lockdown, …
Read More »Melbourne extends COVID lockdown; ‘no jab, no job’ in Sydney
Australia’s second-biggest city Melbourne will stay locked down for a second week after reporting 20 new COVID-19 cases as it struggles to stamp out infections caused by the highly infectious Delta variant of the pandemic. Melbourne had been due to exit the lockdown on Thursday, the sixth for its five …
Read More »Delta spreads in Sydney as Australia widens COVID-19 restrictions
Australian officials warned Sydney residents on Friday to brace for a surge in COVID-19 cases after the country’s largest city logged record infections for the second straight day despite a weeks-long lockdown to stamp out an outbreak of Delta variant. “Just based on the trend in the last few days …
Read More »Australia records one of its youngest COVID-19 deaths as Sydney outbreak grows
Australia’s New South Wales reported one of the country’s youngest deaths from COVID-19 on Wednesday, as daily infections lingered near a 16-month high despite the lockdown of five million people in state capital Sydney entering its sixth week. The unnamed man in his 20s, who had no underlying health issues …
Read More »Australia’s Qantas airline idles 2,500 more staff as COVID-19 cuts domestic flights
Qantas Airways Ltd is temporarily idling about 2,500 employees without pay for at least two months in a bid to cope with fresh COVID-19 restrictions in Australia slashing domestic travel demand. The decision will directly impact domestic pilots, cabin crew, and airport workers, mostly in New South Wales, the airline …
Read More »Arrests as anti-lockdown protesters clash with police in Sydney (Videos, Photos)
Thousands take to the streets of the Australian city to protest against lockdown restrictions amid a surge in cases. Thousands of anti-lockdown activists marched through major Australian cities on Saturday, following an extension of Covid-19 restrictions. Multiple people were arrested and dozens charged with offenses after brawls broke out. Protesters …
Read More »Sydney tightens lockdown as Australia’s COVID-19 cases rise
The Australian city of Sydney on Saturday ordered a shutdown of building sites, banned non-essential retail, and threatened fines for employers who make staff come into the office as new COVID-19 cases kept rising three weeks into a citywide lockdown. Authorities in New South Wales state, of which Sydney is …
Read More »Australia reports first COVID-19 death in 2021, highest case number
Australia reported its first coronavirus-related death of the year on Sunday and a record 77 new virus cases in the state of New South Wales, which is battling an outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant. State Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the numbers in and around the country’s biggest city …
Read More »Locked-down Sydney warned worse may be ahead, COVID-19 cases at 2021 high
Australia’s New South Wales state reported its biggest daily rise in locally acquired coronavirus infections this year on Saturday, with authorities warning that worse may yet to come for Sydney, which is in a three-week hard lockdown. There were 50 new cases of community transmission in the country’s most populous …
Read More »Sydney locked down for another week as Delta COVID-19 variant spreads
The leader of Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) state on Wednesday ordered a week-long extension of Sydney’s COVID-19 lockdown, warning new cases are bound to rise as the country’s biggest city grapples with the highly infectious Delta variant. Sydney, home to a fifth of Australia’s 25 million people, was plunged …
Read More »Australian state reports drop in new COVID-19 cases; lockdowns ease in some areas
Australia’s New South Wales state reported a fall in new daily coronavirus cases on Sunday, following two days of record 2021 infections, as officials implored Sydney residents to follow rules so they could end a lockdown next week. Australia’s most populous state recorded 16 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday, data …
Read More »Lockdown measures extended in Australia amid COVID-19 outbreak
Australian officials extended lockdown and social distancing measures to more of the country on Wednesday, with four major cities already under a hard lockdown in a race to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant. Summary | NSW total cases in latest outbreak top 170 South Australia logs …
Read More »Australia’s Sydney and Darwin begin COVID-19 lockdowns
Sydney goes into a two-week lockdown as Darwin implements a two-day stay-at-home order amid a surge in cases linked to the Delta variant.
Read More »Sydney, Australia’s largest city, in two-week hard COVID-19 lockdown
Sydney and some surrounding areas will enter a hard two-week COVID-19 lockdown on Saturday as authorities struggle to control a fast-spreading outbreak of the highly infectious Delta variant that has grown to 80 cases.
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