FLOOD VICTIMS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22240, 28 January 1947, Page 3

FLOOD VICTIMS

HOMES JNVADED FEARS FOR TWO MEN DROUGHT GRIPS INLAND (9 a.m.) SYDNEY. Jan. 28. The worst floods in southern Queensland for 50 years have trapped dozens of people and forced many others to leave their homes. Two men are missing believed drowned and the police fear that unless rescue boats are speedily sent to the area many lives will be lost. After four days of rain caused by a cyclone the Tweed River rose a foot an hour and broke its banks at several points. It was reported yesterday that the floods in south-east Queensland were subsiding and the flood danger in northern New South Wales and in the Murwillunibah, Tweed Heads, Kyogle and Casino districts is lessening. In the Nerang district about 200 people are cut oil by a flooded river. I-lome-madc rafts of .timber and petrol cans saved 28 people at Mangandan. Train Passengers Marooned

Six hundred passengers were niarooned at Casino when both divisions of .the Brisbane express were forced to halt there for 22 hours. Police, army, and civilian rescue parties pressed into use every form of rescue gear, including draught horses, oil drums, boats of all sizes, and amphibious military vehicles. In one district alone 150 houses are still under water and stock losses have been heavy. Tweed Heads, on the New South Wales-Queensland border, has been turned into a refugee town harbouring more than 1000 people who have been stopped by the Hoods on the way to Brisbane. Many have been stranded since Saturday, but the flood waters are receding and it is expected that train traffic will be resumed to-day. Houses and the remnants of crops are reappearing, but the road and rail travelling have been completely disorganised. A railway bridge is down north of Tweed Heads and water is still running several feet high over the main roads to Brisbane Threats of further serious flooding have now passed. Though some farmers around Casino and adjacent areas have been saved financially by the rain, large sections of Western Queensland and NorthWestern New South Wales are still in the grip of a disastrous drought. In some districts no rain has fallen for 14 months and stock and crops are failing. Milk producing areas have been so badly hit that milk rationing will begin in Sydney and Newcastle on Tuesday.