SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – The Australian coastal enclave of Byron Bay, best known for its celebrity residents and idyllic beaches, was inundated by floodwaters Wednesday as severe storms battered stretches of the country’s east. Torrential rain that began Monday proved unrelenting, with more than 250 millimetres (9.8 inches) falling in the area in 24 hours, forcing many shops in the Byron Bay town centre to close as roads were cut off by rising water levels. […]
Tag: byron bay
Australia’s Byron Bay beach shrinks as sand disappears
BYRON BAY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s Byron Bay usually conjures images of bathers lounging on sunkissed shores, or blissed-out longboarders cruising along cyan-blue waves — but coastal erosion and lashing storms have reduced its seashore to a debris-strewn slither. The tourist hotspot’s main beach has been reduced to a thin strip by a sand-shifting phenomenon known as “headland bypassing”. Recent wild storms have then eroded it further. For more than six months, residents have watched […]
Shark attacks surfer in Australia
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A man escaped with cuts to his leg Monday after a shark crashed into his board while he was surfing near popular tourist spot Byron Bay in eastern Australia. Beaches in the area, some 800 kilometres (500 miles) north of Sydney, were closed for at least 24 hours after the early morning encounter, with the victim taken to hospital by a friend. “It is believed that the shark emerged from under […]





