Road and rail lines remain closed and communities are isolated across inland South Australia after widespread flooding, with the region bracing for more heavy rain.
A severe weather warning remained in place across the state's north on Tuesday with falls of up to 150 millimetres expected.
Food and other supplies have been airlifted into Coober Pedy with locals warned the Stuart Highway, the main access to the south, will remain closed for up to 12 days.
On Monday night, heavy rain lashed the APY Lands, with Ernabella recording more than 100mm.
General manager of the APY Lands Richard King said that the region had completely run out of perishable food.
A flooded section of rail in outback South Australia. Source: Australian Rail Track Corporation
"If the rain doesn’t let up we may have to do some airdrops into some of these more remote areas,” he told NITV News.
"But all of our dry stocks and so forth, we’ve got fair bit of that."
Mr King said the region had dealt with similar issues in the past, and had plans for providing supplies to cut-off areas.
“We’ll do what we normally do and pull together a number of land cruisers and run a convoy in... but that rain overnight has really saturated the roads, so if we’re going to move it’ll be in a couple of days time once things start to dry out."
The rain clouds that have caused the historic and destructive floods had the thinnest of silver linings in limiting the movement of Covid around the state.
General manager Richard King says they may have to organise a convoy of land rovers to deliver food to remote areas. Source: ABC Australia
"We do have a lot of people off the lands at the moment visiting family in Adelaide and Port Augusta over the Christmas break.
"Because we’ve had this rain and the damage to the road, a lot of people have found themselves stuck in those places.
"My advice to them is just stay where you are, you’re close to all the food that you need and a lot of medical help.”
State Emergency Service Chief Officer Chris Beattie said it was too early to determine the full extent of the damage across the state as he again urged people to cancel any planned travel to the north.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the tropical system responsible for SA's soaking would steadily move to the east on Wednesday, leaving fine and dry conditions across most of the state.
