Floodwaters engorged Australia’s largest river yesterday, threatening more homes, as Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard called on Queen Elizabeth II to establish a new medal for disaster heroes.
The wall of water engulfing southeastern Victoria swelled the Murray, a mighty river running 2,375km through three of Australia’s seven territories, frustrating hopes it could be used as a buffer for threatened towns.
“We are cutting roads to try and take the water into different directions to the River Murray ... but the Murray itself is coming up because of the recent floods on the Campaspe and the Goulburn [rivers],” Gunnawarra Shire Council Mayor Max Fehring said.
“[It’s] not coming up at a real great rate, but every time it comes up it gives us less opportunity to put water in the river, because of height levels,” he said.
The torrent has swept through 62 towns across one-third of Victoria, which was devastated just two years ago by the country’s worst ever wildfires that killed 175 people.
An area larger than France and Germany combined has already been ravaged by floods in Queensland, killing 35 people and wreaking billions of Australian dollars in damage, wrecking crops and mines in the key farming and resources state.
Tens of thousands of homes have been waterlogged, while roads, railways and bridges were swept away. Nine people are still missing.
Gillard visited the shattered Queensland town of Toowoomba yesterday to spend the national Australia Day holiday with grieving and shocked residents and to pay tribute to the army of volunteers helping with the clean-up.
“We are grieving the loss of life, but we are also celebrating tremendous community spirit, as people work together in the most difficult of times, in the darkest of hours,” Gillard said.
The prime minister said she had asked Queen Elizabeth II, Australia’s head of state, to approve a new National Emergency Medal, to be awarded with other honors on Australia Day for extraordinary efforts during disasters.
The medal would be backdated to allow recognition of “selfless and courageous acts” from the 2008 Victorian bushfires and the current flooding crisis, she said.
“We will never forget those we have lost in this period, but we should also never forget the community spirit that has been shown, by strangers who have done courageous things to help each other as flood water has threatened,” she said.
The Australian government made a special plea for the nation to remember flood victims yesterday, commending those who turned their Australia Day barbecues and parties into fundraising events.
More than A$170 million (US$170 million) has been raised in public donations so far, including A$3.1 million offered by the New Zealand government.
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