SE Australia hit by flooding

HOMES have been flooded in Melbourne and other cities in Australia’s south-east, with rivers forecast to remain dangerously high for days.

About 70 residents were told to leave the suburb of Maribyrnong in Melbourne’s north-west, along with hundreds in the Victoria state cities of Benalla and Wedderburn, authorities said. Melbourne is Australia’s secondmost populous city with five million people.

About 500 homes in Victoria were flooded and another 500 had been isolated by floodwater, Victoria premier Daniel Andrews said. Those numbers would increase, he added, saying: “The real challenge now is we’ve got another rain event next week and the Bureau (of Meteorology) forecasting more rain throughout the next six-to-eight week period and it won’t take a lot of additional water for there to be further flood events,” he added.