AUSTRALIAN FLOODS wreaked fresh havoc on rural communities in the south yesterday, leaving a trail of destruction across four states, at least 17 dead and the prospect of reconstruction of historic proportions.
As tens of thousands of people in flood-stricken towns and cities in the north worked to clean out their homes and offices, heavy rains and floods meted out fresh disaster in southern Victoria state, the nation’s second most populous.
Four major rivers in Victoria were in full flood, with 43 towns, 3,500 people and 1,400 properties affected. Hundreds of people have evacuated their homes, though no one has been killed so far in that state.
“They had the army in town. They were sandbagging on the west side. It was flowing fairly quickly,” said Paula Ryan, who runs a mobile coffee van in Echuca, as the town prepared yesterday to be swamped by the Campaspe river.
The floods began in the northern mining state of Queensland last month and have caused billions of dollars in damage from broken infrastructure, lost commodity exports and the paralysis of state capital Brisbane.
Queensland has accounted for all deaths so far, although the floods have also hit New South Wales and Tasmania.
One central bank board member has estimated that the floods, linked by some scientists to global warming and rising sea temperatures, could shave up to 1 percent or about $A13 billion (€9.6 billion) off economic growth in the December and March quarters.
Victoria’s state emergency service described flooding in the north of that state as probably its worst since records began, with spokesman Hugo Zoller saying it would continue for days.
Gary Tonkin, who runs an auto-electric business in the Victorian town of Charlton, said the Avoca river was running higher than in historic 1956 floods, inundating his business, his son’s home and daughter-in-law’s hair salon.
“Three-quarters of the town is still under water. Some of those houses will probably have to be bulldozed. The force of the water was just unbelievable. Every street that the river was running down was just like a torrent,” he said.
Further north, flood waters continued to recede, mainly fine weather prevailed and Brisbane’s port reopened. In New South Wales, completion of the grain harvest has been delayed and crop quality severely downgraded.
Even in Queensland, where the cleanup is in full swing, some communities face new flood fears with the hamlet of Condamine largely evacuated for a second time.
In Queensland 17 people have been confirmed dead. – (Reuters)