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Indigenous community on flood evacuation stand-by

Boulia shire has gone from seven years of drought to the threat of flood. - ABC

A remote Indigenous community in north-west Queensland may be forced to evacuate today if local rivers continue to rise.

Urandangi's 60 residents are on stand-by as the levels at Lake Nash and the Georgina River continue to rise.

Boulia Mayor Rick Britton says when the rivers peak it could be a record.

Councillor Britton says the shire has gone from seven years of drought to the threat of flood, much to the relief of graziers.

"You'd think that you've just taken a 10 tonne of weight off their shoulders," he said.

Overnight, more than 50 millimetres of rain was dumped on Mount Isa, sparking a number of calls to the State Emergency Service from residents concerned about possible flash flooding.

Diamantina Mayor Robbie Dare says he hopes predictions of a big flood in the Channel Country prove correct as graziers miss out on some much needed rain.

The shire in Queensland's far-west usually runs about 70,000 head of cattle, but dry conditions have forced numbers down to about 18,000.

Councillor Dare says the flood will need to be a big one.

"It has to be a reasonable flood right out to give them good benefit, but it has to get pretty high for them to get real benefit from it if they're not going to get the rain to go with it," he said.

"If the reports are right with some of the estimates they're making up there, it should give it a hell of a shake."

Councillor Dare says current conditions are bad for graziers.

"Luckily enough, I'd say that smaller properties, even though they're big by most standards - privately owned ones - they're probably fluked enough to be not in as bad a situation as some of the big companies like Monkira and Davenport and Sandringham, so this rain I hope gets down here for them."

- ABC

© ABC 2008

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