Australians flee homes

AUTHORITIES told townspeople in Australia’s south-east to flee homes with three days of supplies yesterday, as a surging river threatened another community in a flooding crisis that has devastated the mining industry.

Up to 1,500 homes in Kerang, in the north of Victoria state, could be affected if the Lodden River rises any further. The flooding in Victoria follows weeks of massive flooding in northeastern Queensland, which swamped two-thirds of the giant state, paralysed several mines and left 30 people dead.

One of the victims, a 13-year-old boy, was buried alongside his mother yesterday after becoming a national hero for insisting that rescuers first save his younger brother when their family car was gripped by a raging torrent of water.