Surging Flood Covers Roofs In Riverina, N.S.W.

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28020, 14 July 1956, Page 9

Surging Flood Covers Roofs In Riverina, N.S.W.

(Rec. 8.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, June 13. Police and emergency workers joined in a desperate two-hour battle today to rescue 50 persons from their homes at North Deniliquin in the Riverina district of New South Wales, where flood waters washed away the main levee bank and surged through the township. By the time the rescue parties extricated the last families from the danger zone, water was six feet deep in some homes. Three hundred men worked furiously on the main one and a half mile levee, which protects the town’s main business and residential areas. Spurring them on was the knowledge that 50 homes evacuated in north Deniliquin yesterday were today under water. Not even the roof-tops could be seen where some houses stood.

At noon today radio broadcasts appealed to volunteers to patrol the levee bank. The town clerk. Mr A. C. Jackson, said the Edwards river was expected to reach its peak on Tuesday. If it breaks through 40 homes in the town would go under, he said. The town is in a state of emergency. Hotel verandas, churches, and halls fire being used to house evacuated

families. Some families are living in tents on high ground. A women’s committee has organised a 24-hour service feeding the evacuated persons. In northern Victoria 60 men were rushed today to an irrigation settlement at Echuca village, five miles from Echuca town, to build up banks and protect low-lying dairying country. Flood water from the Murray river broke through the banks last night. Teams are working round the clock filling sandbags, and patrolling danger points. The Murray is rising at Echuca at the rate of six inches a day. Tragowel. 170 miles north-north-west of Melbourne on the Loddon river, has reported five homes in danger as the flood waters continue to rise. The water is at its highest level since 1916. and the town is cut off by road from Melbourne. Mildura, in Victoria’s extreme northwest has offered to help evacuate the residents of Buronga. on the Murray river’s New South Wales side. The Mildura City Council today issued a sharp warning. “Get out while you can.” it told residents of Buronga. “There aren’t enough boats to rescue you.” Buronga is almost surrounded by levee banks, some of which are holding back lakes of water 10 feet deep.