Elon Musk Deploys Starlink To Australia To Help Australians During Worst Floods Ever Recorded

Elon Musk has supplied northern New South Wales with Starlink kits after Mick Fanning reached out on Twitter for his help, following the deadly floods.

The flooding disaster has caused tens of thousands of residents to evacuate their homes, and has affected many businesses.

The Wilsons River spilled into Lismore and peaked at a record 14.4 metres, following 467mm of rain fall in just 24 hours.

Australian surfing icon Mick Fanning was part of a Good Samaritan rescue team pulling residents from trapped houses and transporting them to higher ground.

He reached out to Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk on social media for help by providing satellites to help with the lack of mobile phone reception and internet outages caused by the flood.

The three time champion wrote: '@elonmusk, We need help with the flood disaster in NSW, Australia.

'The people have no means of communication and really need your help!

'Can you help us with Starlink? How can we make it happen? Please share.'

According to Sky News, Brisbane-based company NetVault issued a response by donating 10 Starlink satellites after it reached out to Musk's SpaceX.

The satellites retail for $10,000 (£7617.75) each, and the devices are sent into the sky where they sit at a low orbit.

NetVault tweeted: 'We’ve donated 10 Starlink kits to assist with flood recovery efforts, arriving in Byron Bay this morning.

'These kits will have the new Starlink roaming feature enabled.

'This means the service is portable, & the Starlink units can be moved to other flood ravaged locations easily.'

It added: 'Special thanks to Jean Renouf from Resilient Byron Group.

'Jean reached out to us to get emergency SpaceX Starlink terminals for the Byron region, which were delivered today.

'We're in talks with SpaceX to get more Starlink terminals for people in Lismore & Byron areas.

The devices will have a new roaming feature enabled so that the satellites can be moved from one flood-ravaged area to the next.

NetVault is still in discussions with SpaceX to provide more kits to badly affected areas.

Musk's technology has been hailed as 'life-saving' for people struggling to connect with loved ones.

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Topics: Elon Musk, Australia

Anish Vij

Anish has an MA in Multimedia Journalism and is passionate about delivering sarcastic/mildly amusing content. After studying business at undergrad, Anish realised that he’d much prefer getting paid to rant about a topic, rather than to find a solution to it. Apart from that, he loves the ‘Four F’s’, as he calls it - family, friends, football and food. Email: [email protected]

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