<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/26/after-a-year-of-rain-towns-at-the-end-of-australias-giant-river-system-await-the-slow-inevitable-deluge>
"An enormous levee runs down Mannum’s main street. As the flood waters pour
into South Australia from the eastern states, the river side of the town will
be sacrificed. The other side, it is hoped, will be saved by the “great wall of
Mannum”.
The water has come a long way, over many months, on rivers that flow from more
than 1,500km north across the Queensland border, and from almost 1,000km east
in the Snowy Mountains on the border of New South Wales and Victoria.
The devastating floods in those states have taken lives, and livelihoods,
throughout the year.
Intense rainfall and storms first hit the east coast, filling rivers, lakes and
dams and destroying homes, towns and businesses. More than 20 people died in
February and March, when the damage was largely on the eastern side of the
Great Dividing Range.
But the rain and the waves of floods kept coming, spreading gradually west and
south later in the year, with recovering communities hit again in November. The
earth is saturated, and the water has nowhere to go, and so it continues its
inexorable path through the Murray-Darling Basin. For South Australia, it’s
become an inevitable, slow-moving natural disaster, the premier, Peter
Malinauskas, says.
Dozens of homes and two caravan parks were evacuated on Christmas Day as the
flood levees failed along the river. About 4,000 properties across the length
of the river are expected to be inundated and more than 1,100 have been flooded
so far."
Via Doug Senko, who wrote "Great story on the flooding in Australia."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
