Residents in Victoria’s north have been told it is “too late to leave” as authorities warn of “some of the largest evacuations that we have ever seen” in coming days and a man was found dead in his backyard.
As the clean-up gets underway in suburban Melbourne, river levels have risen dramatically and are yet to peak in regional communities where “widespread inundation” is expected.
It comes as the state recorded its first flood fatality, 71-year-old Kevin Wills, whose drowned body was found at his Rochester home in Victoria’s north on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, emergency warnings were issued for Shepparton, Orrvale and Mooroopna where locals were told the window of opportunity to get out had passed as the Goulburn River swelled.
“Flooding is now impacting Shepparton, which means there is no longer enough time to safely leave your property,” the VicEmergency bulletin advised.
The same message was repeated for the communities of Mooroopna and Orrvale where residents had earlier been urged to evacuate late on Saturday and were given a two-hour window to escape before roads closed at 11pm.
Senator Sarah Henderson tweeted that Shepparton was bracing for “the worst floods in 50 years”.
Authorities warn there could be an unprecedented number of evacuations in the state in coming days.
The Goulburn and Campaspe rivers are both expected to exceed the major flood level, with peaks anticipated in coming days.
The Goulburn River at Shepparton was rising beyond 10 metres on Saturday afternoon and was expected to exceed the major flood level of 11 metres overnight.
Authorities warned properties were expected to be impacted overnight on Saturday, and the river could reach 12 metres on Tuesday, close to the 1974 flood level.
The Campaspe River was expected to surpass 2011 flood levels at Echuca on Saturday.
The Midland Highway, also known as the Mooroopna Causeway, was expected to close on Sunday afternoon but closed on Saturday evening between Mooroopna and Shepparton.
Residents of Echuca and Echuca Village, northeast of Shepparton, were ordered to evacuate immediately on Saturday, with properties near the Campaspe River expected to flood.
Emergency services wanted people in Echuca and Echuca Village to evacuate by last light on Saturday, Loddon Mallee incident controller Mark Cattell said.
A total of about 1000 people were impacted by evacuation orders, with about a third of them in Echuca Village.
“We don’t want people evacuating in the middle of the night when they realise it’s worse than they thought it was going to be,” he told AAP.
Echuca residents were advised to prepare to be away from home for seven to 10 days, with Echuca Village expected to be impacted by the middle of next week with flow-on effects from the Goulburn and Murray rivers.
An emergency warning to move to higher ground was also reinstated on Saturday evening for the Campaspe River downstream of Rochester.
“What we don’t want is the Rochester situation where people were comfortable with what was happening, and they were comfortable to stay there, despite us giving them a pretty bleak picture of where it was going to be,” Mr Cattell said.
“We’ve spent the last two days evacuating people out of Rochester using boats in some very risky situations.”
Authorities predicted about 200 Echuca homes would be impacted by floodwaters.
It was possible Echuca Village could be impacted by the rising Murray River for two or three months, Mr Cattell warned.
Authorities also reinstated an evacuation notice for residents of Charlton on the Avoca River on Saturday and warned major flooding was likely at Appin South along the Loddon River from Sunday morning.
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More rain for NSW
More rain could hit the NSW coast as people living in already saturated catchment areas prepare for more water to flow to flood-struck communities.
The Bureau of Meteorology said showers and storms could develop on the east coast on Sunday although inland areas that have received the bulk of recent rainfall were expected to be spared a further deluge.
But another storm system was forecast to develop over central Australia on Tuesday, bringing widespread rain and thunderstorms to eastern states by mid-next week.
On Saturday evening, major flood warnings were in place for 11 rivers in NSW with renewed flooding possible in some areas despite a temporary let-up in the rain.
Heavy downpours in Victoria were also expected to affect towns along the Murray River, including in Moama from Wednesday.
Thousands of residents in Forbes, in the state’s central-west, were affected by flooding after the Lachlan River peaked on Friday night.
NSW SES southern zone commander Benjamin Pickup said on Saturday it was possible rivers would rise rapidly even if the weather was fine due to the significant rainfall across western NSW over the past few weeks.
Major flooding from the Murrumbidgee River wasn’t expected to reach the town of Hay until late October, the bureau said.
October rainfall records have been set in parts of inland NSW, including at Broken Hill in the state’s far west.
-with AAP
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