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Floods isolate thousands in Victoria

21 January 2011 00:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. As floodwater isolates thousands of Victorians, small towns in the state’s mid west are waiting for the waters to peak on Friday morning, APA reports quoting smh.com.au website.
Floodwaters are expected to peak in the towns of Jeparit and Beulah by the morning and are expected to last at those levels for about 16 hours, the State Emergency Service (SES) advises.
If waters reach the anticipated level, six properties are expected to sustain some degree of flooding.
But if floodwater exceeds predictions, the levels will be higher than a one-in-100 year flood event, SES spokeswoman Kate Millar told AAP.
A relief centre has been set up in the town.
Kerang remains isolated and further downstream Swan Hill is likely to be impacted some time between Sunday and Tuesday.
Pyramid Hill is also isolated.
Evacuation alerts have been issued for Kow Swamp and Dimboola, while emergency crews are also monitoring Warracknabeal.
The levees are holding up in Dimboola and water levels remain stable, although they were expected to rise overnight.
If the weir fails, 29 homes could be flooded, Ms Millar said.
The floodwater is expected to continue to threaten towns in the state’s north and northwest for up to 10 more days.
The worst floods in recorded history in the region include a massive, moving inland sea that is threatening small towns from Kerang to Swan Hill and further west near Dimboola and involve the Wimmera, Avoca and Loddon rivers.
There have been more than 150 rescues - half from cars - due to people that have ignored advice not to enter floodwater.
Meanwhile, Rob Roggema, research fellow at RMIT University’s Climate Change Adaptation Program said climate change will cause more frequent extremes.
"We will see in the future longer periods of droughts followed by brief periods of severe rainfall, causing sudden floods," he said.
"Victoria is just lucky this time that all the rain has fallen in catchments which are not discharging their water through the Melbourne metropolitan area, unlike the situation in Queensland."
"If in the future this same amount of water fell and needed to be discharged through parts of Melbourne, there would be a massive problem with many more people affected by flood waters."
Dr Roggema said the effects of these weather events were made worse due to bad planning of our cities and towns.
He said there needed to changes to how cities are planned to provide more opportunities to store water, decrease pavements and `waterproof’ buildings in areas that may be affected by flooding water.