Australian couple left devastated as house washes away on 'day of wedding' in floods

As ravaging and ‘dangerous’ floods and life-threatening downpours battered Australia’s east coast on Friday, prompting immediate evacuations of millions of residents, harrowing footage of an intact house floating in the town of Taree depicted the 'wild and turbulent weather conditions'. Owned by a young couple in NSW, the white and gray distemper home sailed on overflowing Manning River in New South Wales mid-north coast. 

The 37-second devastating footage was widely circulated on social media, as torrential rains and flash floods wreaked havoc on the lives of Australians. “There’s a literal house floating in NSW from floods,” a local resident wrote sharing the now-viral footage. He warned the inhabitants not to ignore the alert warnings and take refuge in local shelters “until it was over”.

Residents set up a GoFundme page for the couple, whose house sailed downstream along with the waves. "On 20th March our brother Joshua and his fiancée Sarah lost their entire home and belongings to the floodwaters in Mondrook, NSW, on the mid-north coast," the page for the donations read.

It added more details, saying, “What was supposed to be their wedding day ended up with their house floating down river and them losing everything they have worked hard for and sadly losing their pets as well.” The page revealed that the couple had scheduled their wedding on the same day when rain and severe weather pummeled the Australian east coast, turning their big day into a disaster. The two sadly lost the pet who was presumably left untended inside the house. 

Tornado hit Sydney's west

Meanwhile, lamenting the damage of property, NSW Bureau of Meteorology chief Agata Imielska wrote on Twitter, "It's a very significant, record-breaking event with the rainfall that we have seen.” Australian meteorologists, in turn, labelled the event as  'an absolute deluge' as  Sydney west’s weather conditions took a turn for the worst after a mini-tornado at about 9:00 am uprooted trees, blew off roofs, and snapped power grid lines, causing a total blackout. Residents reported seeing lightning as power lines burst into sparks telling local correspondents that they are ‘unlikely to see something quite like that again.