N.S.W. TRYING TO COUNT COST OF DISASTROUS FLOODING

Wanganui Chronicle, 20 December 1950, Page 5

N.S.W. TRYING TO COUNT COST OF DISASTROUS FLOODING

Damages Amount Now To Fabulous Millions Of Pounds

SYDNEY, Dee. 19 (Reed. ( being fed by an airlift and Bourkc against the Darling River, New the cost of the disastrous floods w of the state in the past 18 months One estimate is that £10,000,000 would not pay for the damage done—and New South Wales is only one of three eastern States which have suffered as the result of abnormal rain. It has been fully 18 months since all New South Wales rivers last behaved normally, and since thousands of farmers, fruit and vegetable growers and graziers coud be sure that the results of their season’s labour would not be washed away down the nearest stream. At a Premiers’ conference last September, Premier J. McGirr asked the Commonwealth for flood relief amounting to the colossal total of £6,954,000. Though he was in possession of figures going only up to the end of August, he said the State needed £l,954,000 pounds to repair roads, railways and other Governmental projects, £3,000,000 to assist primary producers and £2,000,000 to compensate householders and others. This Bill covered only the crisis period of June and July, when a record rainfall was recorded week after week in the greatest spell of wet weather in New South Wales history. Since then the position has improved, but the floods have continued. Rims RUN RIOT. In the past four months the rivers from the far north to the southwest have run riot. Railway lines and bridges have been torn out, huge areas submerged and valuable farmlands destroyed by silt and erosion. Many lives have been lost and hundreds of

6 p.m.).—With Brewarrina still e resident’s throwing up defences South Wales is trying to count •h’ieh have devastated large areas