Australian authorities issued fresh flood evacuation orders for parts of the east coast on Wednesday, and warned that water levels would keep rising in some areas, even as Sydney woke up to clear skies for the first time in several days.

Wild weather systems have drenched the country's east, prompting tens of thousands of evacuations, especially in the hardest hit state of New South Wales (NSW) where dams continue to overflow and rivers bulge.

No deaths linked to the floods have been reported but the destruction is far-reaching and more than 40,000 people in the state have been evacuated so far.