WANGARATTA: Rising flood waters threatened hundreds of Australian homes Tuesday, after scores were inundated by weekend storms which caused millions of dollars of damage, officials said.
Water police and emergency helicopters were on standby to rescue stranded residents in the southeastern state of Victoria, and the government announced the formation of a special advisory body to help direct recovery efforts.
Residents in Wangaratta, in the state’s northeast, sandbagged homes in fears that a levee would burst, while officials worried that 500 properties downstream in Shepparton could be cut off by rising waters.
The State Emergency Service said 300 homes and businesses had already been damaged to some extent by the flooding in Shepparton and towards Horsham in the state's west after the weekend deluge.
“We’ve potentially got another 290 properties that are potentially at risk of being flooded,” a spokeswoman told AFP.
“Our main area of concern at the moment is Shepparton. The Goulburn River is still rising. It's expected to peak later today or into tomorrow.” Victorian Premier John Brumby said the floods had caused “significant damage” and there would be a multi-million-dollar clean-up bill.
“I've said that I think there will be tens of millions of dollars of damage,” Brumby told reporters.
“There will be roads, there will be bridges, there will be community infrastructure which is damaged due to inundation.”
But Brumby also said that benefits from the rains in the predominantly farming regions, which have spent the best part of a decade in drought, “far outweighs the damage that's occurred”.
“But that equation may just change a little over the next week to two weeks,” he said, adding that further minor to moderate flooding was likely later this month in the state's north. – AFP
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