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North Australian town flooded

Helicopters plucked stranded residents from flooded homes and police standing in waist-deep water directed traffic yesterday as a river swollen by monsoon rains inundated one of northern Australia's biggest towns.

Hundreds of peoples were ordered to evacuate their homes in Katherine as the Katherine River and overflowing drains swamped up to a quarter of the town of 10,000. There were no immediate reports of any casualties.

"My motel looks like it has a moat around it," said Greg Waites, 48, owner of the Katherine Motel in the middle of town.

"The policeman down on the corner is about waist-deep, directing the traffic," Waites said in a telephone interview.

Asked to describe the town's high street, which also serves as the main highway running north-south through the Australian Osutback, he said: "Water. A police car just drove through and the water was up to its doors."

Labor Senator Trish Crossin said she estimated up to a quarter of Katherine was flooded.

She said the area around the town's Tourist Information Center was about 1.5m underwater.

"I've never seen water like this in my life," she said, adding that the swollen Katherine River was "fiercely strong."

Crossin said she saw many local Aborigines sheltering at an evacuation center after becoming stranded in town while shopping for supplies.

Thousands of tourists visit the town each year to tour a scenic gorge cut through the rugged Outback by the Katherine River. Waites said authorities had closed the gorge on Wednesday and there were not believed to be any visitors there yesterday.

The flooding comes just weeks after one of the most destructive cyclones ever to lash Australia devastated towns along the country's northeastern coast and another powerful tropical storm hit the west coast.

Authorities in Katherine set up evacuation centers at three schools on high ground and told residents to bring food with them.

Nursing home residents and hospital patients were moved overnight to an air force base.

Four people were killed in 1998 in Katherine, 300km south of the Northern Territory capital of Darwin, during a flood in which the town's main street was submerged under 2m of water.

Police said water levels were not expected to be as high as in the 1998 flood, the worst in the town's history.

Resident Nola Sweetman said she could see helicopters from her property, north of the town.

"There's a lot in the air right now," she said. "The women next door were being helicoptered out."

Authorities were also evacuating visitors from Kakadu National Park south of Darwin due to the risk of flooding.

Waites agreed that the flooding was not as bad as in 1998, when only the roof of his motel was visible above swirling floodwaters.

And he said some townsfolk had found a good place to drown their sorrows -- his bar.

"There's water all around it, but it's dry inside and the bar's full, mate," he said. "The rum's still flowing."
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