Floods Follow Drought In Australian Outback

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31319, 15 March 1967, Page 6

Floods Follow Drought In Australian Outback

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.J SYDNEY, March 14. The longest drought of the

century—it lasted 10 years in some places—has broken. Communities who only a few months ago were praying for rain are now hoping it will stop, or fearing it will rain again.

From the north of Western Australia, more than 2000 miles across the continent to northern Queensland, record rains in the last week have turned vast areas of parched land into inland seas, wrecking road and rail communications, cutting off towns and homesteads and replacing the crippling drought with the terror of flooding. Torrential rain pouring into creeks, which have not flowed at more than a trickle for years, has transformed the dusty Australian outback into a gigantic swamp. Stockmen, travellers and graziers on isolated stations are cut off, and light aircraft and R.A.A.F. Dakotas have been dropping emergency food supplies by parachute. Alice Springs (population 6000) is like a city under seige. Emergency airlifts are taking in badly-needed food and fuel supplies, but the town is likely to be cut off by road and rail for weeks.

Even if there is no more rain, it will be a month before the main highway, which is flooded in parts up to six feet deep, can be opened for traffic. The north-south railway line is broken in dozens of places by swirling floodwaters, and a 400-foot long railway bridge has been washed away. It is clear that the flooding has caused thousands of dollars worth of damage, and business life in Alice Springs has ceased through lack of supplies and communications. Community leaders say the town is without reserve stocks of food, potatoes and milk are unavailable and tinned food and flour supplies will last only four or five days. Cairns, in northern Queensland, is isolated and half the town is under water after nearly 18 inches of rain in 24 hours at the week-end. • The town’s 27,000 people will be short of food within the next few days unless the rain stops and floodwaters

clear from roads and railway lines.

An estimated 50,000 square miles is under water in southwestern Queensland, where some farmers had not seen rain for eight years. Graziers here have hailed the life-giving rain, and excitedly reported seeing green grass shoots for the first time in a decade. Thousands of square miles of land throughout Australia is already showing cattle feed and brilliant displays of wild flowers which have never been seen before. Although the floods have caused so much damage, outback Australians know that their future livelihood has been underwritten by the water sinking deep into the thirsty soil.