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Subscribe to RSSResidents of Wagga Wagga, Australia, are heading to shelters after heavy rains cause massive flooding that make break the town's levee. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Floods across eastern Australia forced more than 13,000 people to evacuate their homes on Tuesday after record-high summer rains drenched three states over the past week, swelling rivers and forcing dams to overflow.
In the worst-hit state of New South Wales, authorities ordered 8,000 people to leave their homes in the inland city of Wagga Wagga, where flood waters were expected to breach an 11-meter levee and swamp houses and the main business district.
Thousands of people in Wagga Wagga moved to shelter at local schools, while the center of the town, home to around 60,000 people, was deserted on Tuesday.
PhotoBlog: Thousands flee flooded city
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that more than 700 properties have been evacuated around the city. It published aerial pictures of the surrounding farmland, which it described as looking "like an archipelago of green islands in a muddy sea".
"If the levee is breached, we would expect significant inundation and we would expect that to happen very quickly," State Emergency Service Assistant Commissioner Mark Murdoch told reporters.
Barry O'Farrell / New South Wales government via AFP - Getty Images
An aerial photo shows floodwaters at North Wagga Wagga in New South Wales on Tuesday.
Heavy rains across Australia's east over the past week also prompted flood warnings in the northern Queensland state, and in Victoria, where residents in some small towns have been warned to prepare to evacuate if conditions worsen. Two people have been killed in flood waters over the past week.
The heavy rains filled Sydney's Warragamba Dam, which overflowed on the weekend for the first time in 13 years, while Canberra's Cotter Dam has filled with water spilling over a new dam wall currently under construction.
The national government has made the military available to help with the floods, but said it was too early to determine the cost of damage or impact on the economy.
"It is impossible to quantify economic damage until the flood waters subside," Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in Canberra.
But the Premier of New South Wales Barry O'Farrell earlier said the damage bill could be as high as $530 million (A$500 million).
The flood waters, however, will not have a major impact on Australia's major winter crops, which have already been harvested, the government's chief commodities forecaster ABARES said on Tuesday.
"Winter crop harvest was complete before the flooding happened," ABARES chief commodities analyst Jammie Penm told Reuters. "That's the largest crop component in Australian production.
He said the rains could cause local damage to summer crops, such as sorghum, cotton and soybeans, but it was too early to make an assessment.
"Some of the crops might not necessarily die when they submerge. Some of the crops can survive even after floods," he said.
"It is too early to make an assessment in preciseness, because we have to wait for the waters to subside."
In early 2011, Australia suffered disastrous floods which killed around 35 people, swamped 30,000 houses, wiped out roads and bridges and flooded coal mines, denting exports and economic growth.
Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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We watched with great sympathy and sadness the tornadoes flatten your towns and devastate entire families...now snow has fallen on these towns to add to the misery. To the little town of Marysville in Indiana, have courage, our town of Marysville near Melbourne was completely devastated by bushfires 3 years ago...out of 200 houses less than 20 were left standing and 30 odd people lost...Slowly the town is coming back to life with rebuilding and determination as your town will to. We are up to our eyeballs in water at the moment and we to will band together and help out our neighbours...It is just what you do in the face of disaster...We will be OK as you will be, and look after your mates...stay strong, keep your determination going and above all have courage. Blessings to those on both sides of the Pacific tonight, as we watch our water levels rise and flood people's dreams here and may the winds of the tornadoes be finally still, over there.
This is one of those times, I wish some of our foreign aid money would go to Australia.
They have been loyal friends and allies for many years. It is far better to help old friends than waist money it that black hole called the middle east. Also we waist money on the world bank, the I.M.F. and the U.N.. All that money would go a long way to help our true friends and our own disaster stricken people here at home.
bob
I second that !
Not to be facetious but does this mean the drought is over or was that another part of Australia?
B.Todd...the drought has well and truely broken it was broke last year this is just a lot of rain on previously soaked ground in some relatively low lying areas.....in the words of a famous Australian Song...."there's been floods before in Ningen and there'll floods again". This is not an irregular occurance.
I suggest we stop payments to Pakistan and Afghanistan and send it to Australia. They will appreciate it more and they are truly our allies. I've been to Australia before, its a great country. I was treated very well there.
Joe..Glad you enjoyed yourself while here. Give your money to the people who lost all re the tornadoes over there...we are OK and people will get thru...it is just the stinking mess the mud leaves behind and the water damage...Once the water goes down then the resources will swing into action..Guess we are getting pretty good at that now as we have had quite a bit of practise lately...thanks for your good thoughts...
Well, there go my vacation plans. I wonder what is going on in Antarctica these days.
Floods suck, been there, done that. Best wishes australia.
Hey does any one need a desalination plant....we got one never been used.....the Greenies told the last clowns that were in Government here in Victoria that it was never going to rain again after 10 years of drought. It cost umpteen billions of dollars to build (still not finished delayed due to rain????), graft, corruption, union thuggery, pay offs ....the works.....hasn't stopped raining long enough to dry out to roads for 2 years, dams overflowing, ducks everywhere, floods, and water bills going up to pay for the desalination plant....another White Elephant.....and if you can't take the desal plant...can you please take the damn politicians!!!!!!!!
I tell you what- we'll trade you the desalination plant if you'll take OUR politicians.
Sorry Yank in Australia-we have three branches of government full of those people. Maybe you can turn it into a prison and put them all in it. Let us know if you have extra room and we'll send some of ours over...
Wow - not again! I hope the U.S. can find some of all that money we first borrow from China, then send to people who hate us, to send in the way of aid for our real friends in Australia. What someone like me can do is peanuts, but I'll find a way to send what I can.
A/noon Hal..No don't send your money to us, give it to the people who have just had tornadoes go thru their towns...we at least have had warning this was coming, they never did. We are fine, there is nothing you can do at the moment until the water goes down and then the clean up will begin, and it will be massive....just the nature of the beast. So please give your money to your own people, and hey who cares if you can only give peanuts...it is the thought that counts and when it is from the heart, it is enormous....have a good evening over there and thank you....
Stay dry Shona1!
Now's the time to start planning on building more dams or rather it was time 10 years ago to plan for when the rains would return.
Dorothea Mackellar said it well.
"I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I lover her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror--
The wide brown land for me!"
I lived/worked in eastern Australia for 7 months last year, they don't need foreign aid especially from the US. Fortunately their country is probably like the US was in the 50's with abundant natural resources and a positive trade balance with the rest of the world. Unlike the US, they SELL (mostly coal and natural gas) to the Chinese rather than import and borrow. It is the Australian's that should probably feel sorry for us in the US for having lost all sense of self sufficiency and control of our own destiny.
David...not sure where you were or whether you kept up with the Australian News...but we have an unelected minority government here that is throwing away our "destiny" just as fast as they can possibly chuck it out the window.....don't know who should feel sorry for whom....and since I have a foot in both camps so to speak I am in a real quandary.
Carbon Tax, Desalination Plant, National Broadband Network, Home Insulation Scheme, the list of governmental blunders at both Federal and Statelevels is too long to detail.....I wish all we had to worry about was a bit of high water....that will recede the lousy government hangs around like a bad smell for years to come.
What ever they get the australians have coming to them and much more. they murderedthe people and stole the land from the original australian people.
I guess that means the US has what's coming to us, too? Since our ancestors did the same to the Native Americans?
And that didn't happen to the Native Americans in the US? You want to blame someone, blame the British; they were the ones who declared Australia a penal colony and decided to settle there.
The "Original" Australians all came from somewhere else, historians have speculated east Africa so I'm not sure being in-country slightly longer than the Europians qualifies as being your land. The aborigines are an extremely primitive culture that could not survive the 20th century without the grace and goodwill of the Australian government. This reverse Darwinism always has a bad outcome.
what a jerk. it's easy to see you know all about world history NOT.
Nina....will you be the first to go back to where you came from???? The Native Americans and the Hawaiians want their land back too
I am in NO way defending what took place back then, but that is by far NOT the only country that has happened in. In fact, there were nations in Africa that sold their captives into slavery too Spain, England, and several other countries. So I guess all the 'bad things' that have been taking place around the world as of late are because of what happned two centuries ago?? How does it go again? He who is without sin may cast the first stone. So, Nina "christian", how many stones do you think YOU are able to throw??
Best of wishes to all Australians afflicted with the floods, I'm hoping the best for you. Hang tough and don't dispair.
12-21-2012?
David, your right, Australia doesn't need Foreign aid, they have enough of them coming in every morning in boats that are not sea worthy that they have to deal with!
Australians are our true loyal allies. I think if we stop the payments to Pakistan and Afghanistan we can send it to our friends in Australia. They have helped us many many times. One thing for sure, they really like Americans too. I was treated very well when I went to Sydney. I also, have a daughter that will go to Australia this summer.
A/noon Joe.. No we are OK we do not need money etc from the States but thanks for the thought...We will look after our own as we have always done. You just have to get on with it, no different to the heart break people have suffered re the tornadoes over there. It is a two way thing between us and the States. You help with our bushfires and we with yours. We know you are there and can be relied on if we need you and like wise you with us....Hope your daughter has a fantastic stay...Have a good evening over there....
Australia is blessed with abundant deposit of mineral resources, some of which were extracted and sold to China, Japan and South Korea etc, the proceed of which pay for everything imported as Australia has no indigenous industry base to produce own and lack of adequate infrastructures.
Without the wealth generated from mineral resouces, Australians will not be able to enjoy a relatively high living standard.
Henrich....when was the last time you were in Australia? We even have MacDonalds now.
Henrich..we have our industries here just the same as the US...The US imports more than any other country in the world. Yes we are very fortunate we are blessed with natural resources and yes we export it all over the world and we import from all over the world...we started off no different to the US in the early days so not sure why you think we are so different. And as for McDonalds I don't eat that crap.
Australia had MacDonalds as early as 1971.
Henrich....we had infrastructure before that ..... still do....how do you think we get all those natural resources to ports to be shipped to China etc.....as for MacDonalds it was just an example. Come on down we will throw another shrimp on the Barby.