Asia-Pacific News
Testing time for Australian town's new flood defences
Feb 6, 2012, 23:59 GMT
Sydney - The flood-ringed Australian town of St George was safe behind hurriedly built earthworks Tuesday as the Balonne River neared its peak.
'I've got every confidence it will hold the water out of the town,' Mayor Donna Stewart told national broadcaster ABC. 'But there are about 30 homes outside the levee, which have floodwater in them or soon will have.'
Most of the cotton town's 3,800 residents have been evacuated, some to campsites in Brisbane, the Queensland state capital 500 kilometres to the east.
Some people have defied orders to leave, choosing to try to sandbag their homes against slow-moving floodwaters that are 7 kilometres across.
The Bureau of Meteorology is predicting the river will peak 50 centimetres below the 4-kilometre levee protecting the town's north.
Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-07/levee-holds-as-river-creeps-hig her/3814722
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