Asia-Pacific News

Clean up begins after Australia's east coast drenching

May 24, 2009, 9:04 GMT

Sydney - Thousands of householders and business owners on Australia's east coast were Sunday counting the cost of torrential rain last week that engorged rivers and led to flash floods. But the worst-case scenario of rivers breaching levees and inundating towns never came to pass. Most of the 16,000 people urged to leave are now back in their homes. New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees estimated the damage bill would be in the tens of millions of dollars because of structural damages to roads and bridges. 'It's an inland sea,' Rees said after touring the area by helicopter. 'You can see the stock that are isolated and the towns that are isolated and you wonder where it's all going to go.' Two people lost their lives in the flooding, and thousands of houses and hundreds of vehicles damaged. Farmers complained of thousands of kilometres of fencing brought down, crops underwater and earnings foregone.

Asia-Pacific News

Clean up begins after Australia's east coast drenching

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