With rains repeatedly battering NSW, and flood victims still reeling from four inundations in 18 months, the state's premier is turning his attention to Japan's methods for mitigating extreme weather.
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Wrapping up the first leg of his 10-day Asian trade tour, Premier Dominic Perrottet will on Sunday visit Ryu-Q Kan, one of the world's biggest underground drains, before heading to South Korea for more trade discussions centred on alternative energy sources.
Located 50 metres below ground on the outskirts of Tokyo, the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel acts as a mammoth water-storage facility to protect Tokyo from flooding during Japan's heavy monsoons.
Completed in 2006 at a cost of more than $2 billion, the 177m long underground surge tank has a capacity of 670,000 cubic metres.
It has five containment silos and a network of more than six kilometres of underground pipes, each more than 10.5m in diameter.
The tank collects overflowing water from four rivers and makes controlled, safe releases to the Edo River.
Earlier this month, dozens of evacuation orders affecting more than 85,000 residents in southern and western Sydney were issued as communities endured record-breaking floods.
"There's no doubt these events are becoming more common," Mr Perrottet said at the time.
In the wake of repeated flooding, mitigation measures have been hotly debated by officials - with the government not yet committing to any particular policy.
Suggestions put forward include storing less water in the Warragamba Dam in Sydney's west, improving evacuation routes for communities and moving people off flood plains including through land buybacks.
On Saturday, the premier travelled from Tokyo to Hiroshima on one of Japan's iconic bullet trains.
As well as paying his respects at the city's Peace Memorial Park - set up to mark the recovery from Hiroshima's 1945 atomic bombing by the US - Mr Perrottet spruiked the government's $500 million budget commitment for a high-speed rail link between Newcastle and Sydney via the Central Coast.
While underlining that bullet train journeys would not be happening "anytime soon" in NSW, the premier said, "It's important to plan for the future and ... dream about what travel could look like in decades".
Following Sunday's Ryu-Q Kan visit, Mr Perrottet will fly to Seoul where talks are set to focus on green hydrogen and health.
Australian Associated Press
