PLIGHT OF SETTLERS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 8, 10 January 1934, Page 7

PLIGHT OF SETTLERS

SNOWY RIVER REGION

WARNED TO EVACUATE

United Press Association —By Electric Telperapb—Copyright . •• " (Received January 10, noon.) . . SYDNEY, This Day. - Tho flood at Orbost and in: the surrounding district, where the Snowy Eiver overflowed its banks, assumed grave proportions. The polico issuod a warning to all the residents in the flooded area to evacuate their homes as a further rise in the Snowy River is expected. Tho damage in this district is estimated at & 500,0001 Many settlers and their families were rescued by boats from the roofs of their houses in the last, stages of exhaustion, but it is reinarkablo that thus far no drowning* have been reported, though an elderly woman is missing, and the family of a flve-roomed house, which was swept down the river, have not been located. * The new bridge, erected at a cost of £14,000 over the upper reaches of tho Snowy River, was washed away. Reports received from South Coast centres of New South Wales indicated that conditions are rapidly improving, and the flood waters are subsiding. Although' a considerable volumo of water is still passing over the Burlinjuck Dam it is not expected that a serious flood will occur unless there is further heavy rain. i A total of 17 inches of rain fell in nine hours at Eden. ' ! Tho disturbance, which brought1 torrential rain to the eastern part of tho State, has moved eastward over the Tasman Sea.

Gales and rough seas are likely ou the coast, and shipping has been warned.