The Bureau of Meteorology says there is no tsunami threat for Australia. Follow the day\u2019s news live<\/p>\n
Over 80% of Australian council areas declared disasters in the past four years: Watt<\/strong><\/p>\n However, Watt<\/strong> was hesitant to attribute the individual disaster in the Kimberley to climate change, unlike his colleague <\/a>Chris Bowen<\/a><\/strong>. But he said the overall pattern of increasing disasters was \u201cundoubtedly climate change\u201d:<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think that you can point to one particular event and say it\u2019s due to climate change, but there is no doubt that we are seeing before our eyes is climate change happening. We know from all the scientists that we\u2019re going to be facing more of these intense events more frequently.<\/p>\n I was actually advised yesterday by our agency that just in the last 12 months, we\u2019ve seen<\/strong> 316 of Australia\u2019s 537 council areas disaster-declared:<\/strong> that\u2019s about 60% of the council areas in the country. And if you go back four years to the black summer, 438 council areas in Australia have been disaster-declared, which is over 80%.<\/strong><\/p>\n A lot of people aren\u2019t aware but the wet season in northern Western Australia \u2026 generally doesn\u2019t begin until later this month. So their wettest months actually tend to be February and March rather than starting as early as January. So to have this amount of water come through the system this early in the wet season is a concern<\/strong>.<\/p>\n