TERRIFYING footage of spiders swarming fence posts, streetlights and the sides of homes as they flee floods in Australia has emerged online.
The creepy crawlies were captured scurrying to high ground as floodwaters swept the country’s east coast over the weekend.
Arachnids are even clambering up people’s legs in a bid to escape record-breaking downpours, witnesses told the Guardian.
Shenae and Steve Varley said that spiders covered the “entire length of the railing” at Penrith weir in western Sydney on Sunday.
“There were also skinks, ants, basically every insect, crickets – all just trying to get away from the flood waters,” Shenae said.
“My husband videoed it, because I was not going close to it.
“When he was standing still he had spiders climbing up his legs. A skink used him as a pole to get away from the water.”
The state of New South Wales has been battered by the worst flooding in 60 years, with torrential rains expected to continue for another day or two.
Three days of torrential rain have left highways submerged, with cars up to their windshields in water.
Australia has evacuated thousands from suburbs in Sydney’s west – and it appears the city’s eight-legged critters are running for cover, too.
One local said he saw “millions of spiders” after parking his car near his home in the mid-north coast of New South Wales on Monday morning.
The bugs were racing away from flood water rising up from nearby Kinchela Creek.
“It’s amazing. It’s crazy,” he the Guardian.
“The spiders all crawled up on to the house, on to fences and whatever they can get on to.”
Social media clips of land around the creak shows what appears to be brows floodwater before it becomes clear the area is covered by a warming mass of spiders.
Australia was set on Monday to evacuate thousands more people from suburbs in Sydney’s west.
Authorities said about 18,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying areas already.
“This is an ongoing situation that is evolving and is extremely dangerous,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told parliament.
Large parts of the east coast will get more heavy rain this week, brought by a combination of a tropical low over the northern part of Western Australia and a coastal trough off New South Wales, said Jane Golding, a weather official.
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“We expect this heavy rain to fall on areas that haven’t seen as much rain over the last few days,” Golding told reporters.
“We expect the flood risk to develop in those areas as well.”
Some parts of Sydney’s western regions have suffered the worst flooding since 1961, said authorities, who expect the wild weather to last until Wednesday.
A severe flood warning has been issued for large parts of New South Wales, as well as neighbouring Queensland.
In other news, a rare species of wolf spider once thought to be extinct in the UK has been spotted at a military base in Surrey.
A venomous spider with camouflage so convincing that it’s “almost impossible” to see has left experts dazzled.
And, whales, dolphins and porpoises are facing “imminent” extinction, according to over 350 experts.
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