Arabic version: سكان ريفرلاند يستذكرون فيضان جنوب أستراليا عام 1956

According to ABC News, Riverland residents are reflecting on the 1956 disaster, South Australia’s largest flood event on record, 70 years later. Months of heavy rainfall in the eastern states sent disastrous volumes of water through the Lower Murray-Darling Basin, damaging or destroying homes, including a local garage, shop and bank.

John Peterson, 88, was in his first year of university when floodwaters struck his hometown of Kingston on Murray. He returned home at times to fill sandbags and load dirt into tip trucks. Peterson said his father, who had lived in Kingston on Murray since 1896, had never seen anything comparable. He recalled daily working bees, with residents providing tea for the work gangs on the banks, and said tip trucks made a crucial difference.

Floodwaters peaked at about 9.1 metres in Renmark in August 1956, according to the Renmark Irrigation Trust. Peterson filmed the event with his Eumig C3 8mm camera, switching from black and white to colour because of its drama. He still has the camera. Children also had to row to and from school during the flood.

Theo Kaesler, now 78, was eight when water reached his family’s Loxton property. Although the family home was unaffected, he remembers harvesting oranges from a neighbour’s tree by rowboat. His property retains reminders of the flood, including a gum tree photographed at the peak. Local historian Meredith Arnold said the lasting lesson was the way the community supported each other. Peterson said future generations should continue to work together through floods and other disasters.