Australia struggles to cope with extreme wet weather
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Large parts of Victoria of Australia on Saturday are still struggling to cope with the extreme wet weather.
Last week, Victoria received its one-in-500-year rainfall, which dumped 174 millimeters on Melbourne city. The weather has flooded houses in Melbourne's south-east and lightning strikes cut power to more than 30,000 houses. One man died and a number of other people had to be treated by paramedics after falling from roofs and ladders after last weekend's deluge.
In the last two days, heavy rain fell on Victoria again, and caused localized flash flooding and damaged properties in the state.
The town of Tatura, in the state's north, was hardest hit, with 41 millimeters of rain on Thursday night and Friday. About a dozen homes were damaged by wind and hail.
In Melbourne, the worst-hit areas were Altona and Newport, where lightning hit a tree, which then fell on a house and a car.
According to Lachlan Quick from the State Emergency Service ( SES), volunteers are braced for another potentially busy weekend.
"In conjunction with the Bureau of Meteorology, we're going to be keeping a pretty close eye on the northern half of Victoria over the weekend," he told ABC News on Saturday morning.
"We've probably got flood warning for at least half a dozen rivers and looks as though we're likely to receive a series of thunderstorms moving through the northern half of the state.
"But it's important to know it won't be on the same level as we saw last week."
Quick said it is still extremely wet along the Murray River in the north-west of Victoria and any more rain there will hamper flood recovery efforts.
There are still a lot of areas of Victoria that are actually heavily affected by floodwaters, such as Mildura, the Irymple area and Red Cliffs.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the area between Kerang and Swan Hill, which has been heavily effected by rainfall now, will continue to be affected by heavy rainfall for another fortnight.
Meanwhile, Murray Valley Wine Growers chief executive Mark McKenzie said any extra rain is not welcome, as up to 50 percent of wine grape crops, which are worth between 40 and 50 million U.S. dollars., could be lost if there is more rainfall in the area.
"We are in extremely steamy conditions. There are some hundreds of hectares of vineyards still physically underwater and in some cases up to a meter of water. We have thousands of hectares of vineyard that are totally sodden," he told ABC News on Saturday.
"Even if those people were capable of getting onto the ground they're not able to spray fungicides so we've got a situation where some of the varieties are getting seriously, seriously rotted and those crops are going off in front of grower's eyes.
"So it's a full-blown disaster for a significant number of growers in the region at the moment."
Growers are now appealing to the Federal Government for exceptional circumstances funding.
This week, farmers in Koo Wee Rup, south-east of Melbourne, were also flooded.
Wayne Tymensen, a potato grower there, said he could lose up to 80 percent of his crop.
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