‘Amazing’ Australian floodwaters enter new towns

Surging floodwaters broke levees in disaster-hit Australia on Monday to inundate more properties in the southeast, as residents sandbagged homes against the spiralling crisis. Swollen rivers in the southeastern state of Victoria have created a flood zone measuring an estimated 90 kilometres (56 miles) long and 40 kilometres wide, the State Emergency Service said. “This area has seen unprecedented flooding,” SES spokesman Kevin Monk told AFP. “This is just amazing.” As the floodwaters rushed towards the Murray River, evacuation alerts were issued late Sunday and early Monday for the small communities of Pental Island and Murrabit West, home to about 400 people each. In an emergency alert the SES said that levees around Murrabit West were failing, warning that the area would be inundated in the next 12 hours. “They are being flooded now,” Monk told AFP. “It’s across properties. If they haven’t sandbagged them, there may be some impacts on people’s housing.” – Yahoo News