River surge swamps town

A surging river flooded and isolated the latest community hit in Australia’s deadly flood disaster yesterday, straining a levee serving as the main protection between the muddy waters and residents’ homes.

The flooding in Kerang, in the south-east state of Victoria, follows weeks of massive flooding in north-eastern Queensland that the government says could be the nation’s most expensive natural disaster.

Overflowing rivers swamped an area larger than France and Germany combined, shut down much of Queensland’s lucrative coal industry and left 30 people dead.

Walls of water miles wide are now surging across northern and western Victoria in the wake of record rainfall last week.

Seventy-two Victoria towns have already been affected by rising waters, 1,770 properties have been flooded and more than 3,500 people have evacuated their homes.

Floodwaters in the Kerang region were the highest in more than 100 years, said Kim Healey, a spokeswoman for the State Emergency Service.

Up to 1,500 homes in the town could be inundated if the levee holding back the water from the swollen Lodden River gives way. It has held out so far, but water levels were expected to remain high for several days.

“The primary concern is the ability of the levee to withstand high flood levels for an extended period of time,” Ms Healey said.

Other communities were at risk of inundation for the next few days as water levels continue to rise in several areas. Residents of Dimboola, a town of about 2,000 in the state’s north west, were asked to evacuate yesterday as the Wimmera River that runs through the community surged higher.

“This flood event is still far from over,” said Tim Wiebusch, director of operations for the State Emergency Service. “We are likely to see this flood emergency continuing for at least another seven to ten days.”

The government has said the Queensland floods could be the country’s most expensive yet, but has not yet released estimates of the costs. Some estimates were already at five billion dollars before muddy brown waters swamped the capital Brisbane last week.

“People’s homes are stripped, they’ve got nothing. We’ve got to rebuild their homes and help them rebuild their lives,” Queensland Premier Anna Bligh told Australia’s Seven network.

“So recovery is still a long way down the track - inch by inch, street by street.”

The floods appeared to have claimed another life when the body of a three-year-old boy who had been reported missing was found in floodwaters near his family’s home in the small community of Marthaguy, New South Wales, south of Queensland, yesterday. Officials said they were still investigating how the boy died and had no further details.

Authorities have been telling towns people in Australia’s south east to flee homes with three days of supplies as a surging river was threatening another community in the flooding crisis that has devastated the country’s mining industry. The flooding in Victoria follows weeks of massive flooding in north-eastern Queensland, which swamped two-thirds of the giant state, paralysed several mines and left 30 people dead.

Authorities gave several of the state’s waterlogged coal mines special exemptions to environmental rules so they could pump water out into their already-flooded surroundings.

The mining industry estimates the flooding has cost €1.7 billion in lost sales of coal, Australia’s most lucrative export, causing a shortage that has pushed up global prices.

In Victoria, more than 750 miles south of the Bowen Basin which holds most of Queensland’s coal mines, the Kerang levee breached at several points and people were urged to head for a relief centre on higher ground, the State Emergency Service said.

“You should ensure you have left your property immediately,” the SES said late on Wednesday in text message alerts sent about 5.20 a.m. to the town’s 2,500 residents.

“This flood emergency is still far from over,” he said. “The levee may come under further risk as there is a huge wall of water that is bearing down on Kerang.”

Walls of water miles wide are surging across northern and western Victoria in the wake of record rainfall last week.

Floodwaters have already left 1,000 households in Victoria’s north west without power, and thousands more homes are under threat of cuts as sub-stations and low-lying power lines are submerged.

Energy supplier Powercor built earthen barriers around the substation in Kerang, in a floodplain expected to be inundated by 6ft of water.

The government has said the Queensland floods could be the country’s most expensive natural disaster, but has not yet released estimates of the costs. Some estimates already were at €3.5 billion before muddy brown waters swamped Brisbane last week.

Twenty of Queensland’s coal mines were given special permits yesterday to pump floodwater from their sites and another 18 applications were being considered, said Mike Birchley, the acting assistant director general of Queensland’s Department of Environment and Resource Management.

Many of the state’s 57 coal mines were working around the clock to remove floodwater and secure access to rail transport after tracks and bridges were washed away, said Michael Roche, chief executive officer of the state miners’ association Queensland Resources Council.