LONG DROUGHT BREAKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20162, 24 January 1929, Page 13

LONG DROUGHT BREAKS.

SIX YEARS WITHOUT RAIN.

DOWNFALLS IN QUEENSLAND.

YOUNG CHILDREN TERRIFIED.

[from our own correspondent.] SYDNEY, Jan. 17. New Zealanders, so used to rain, will find it difficult to realise that anywhere in the world children can grow to five years of age without experiencing a downfall. But such a thing can happen in Australia, as witness the following message from Cloncurry, in Western Queensland, published in Sydney on Saturday last:—

"To-day in Western Queensland there are many children, four and five years old who are seeing rain for the first time in their lives. As it clatters on the iron roofs they are terrified; the sound is foreign to them. But to their parents the tattoo is the sweetest music in the world. After six years of drought, rain is falling, and throughout a vast stretch of 'country the people are mad with joy. In their delirious abandon they have stood in the open laughing and they have become drenched to the skin, just to feel once again the almost forgotten touch of pure water from Heaven." Later messages have indicated that many of the rivers in Northern Queensland are in flood, some of them for the first time in ten years. Vast areas of country have been inundated, trains have been blocked, roads have been impassable. But who cares ? Certainly nobody in Western Queensland. More rain fell in Cloncurry in one day last Saturday than fell in the town during the previous ten years. The people became lighthearted. The excitement was greater than when the people wondered what had become of Bert Hinkler when he was on his recordbreaking flight, and had been forced down in the desert before he reached Cloncurry. As the people watched the flooded roads they cheered. They met on the street corners and their bright expressions revealed their inmost feelings. Business people wondered if the rain had extended to the adjoining districts and anxiously awaited reports, realising that rain meant the liquidation of many accounts and a prosperous few months ahead at least.

Then came the news that almost the whole. of Western Queensland had had on the average abo jt 2in. of rain, so the celebrations at Cloncurry were extended. It was realised that brave battlers with fortune had at last reaped their reward. In fact, the whole area would take a new lease of life.

Rain! For six long years they had waited for it. Every year for six years the "rainy" season had passed without a drop of rain falling. There were those who could not "stick it out." They had departed leaving behind them their ruined holdings. Others with stouter hearts and more settled finances had stayed on, wondering, most of them, how much longer they could last. And then came the rain. "Was it any wonder that the people of Cloncurry gave it a cheering welcome ?