SYDNEY, March 15 — Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said today that troops would be deployed to help communities hit by a days-long flood emergency in the country’s north.

Albanese said the centre-left government had approved deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel to help communities around the flood-hit Northern Territory town of Katherine, about 264km south of territory capital Darwin.

“To everyone doing it tough right now, know we are with you through the ⁠response and through ⁠the recovery,” Albanese ⁠said on social media platform ⁠X.

Emergency ⁠Services Minister Kristy McBain said in televised remarks that the troops would ⁠be deployed for up to 14 days.

Authorities, grappling with floods sparked by heavy rain in the Northern Territory and neighbouring Queensland state, said this ⁠week they recovered two bodies in a search for two Chinese backpackers who ⁠went missing in floods in Queensland’s ⁠Gympie region.

Climate ⁠change is causing heavy short-term rainfall events to become more intense in Australia, the country’s science agency has previously said. — Reuters