Rains from Ex-Cyclone Yasi trigger evacuations of towns in Victoria State

MELBOURNE. February 6. KAZINFORM. Ex-Tropical Cyclone Yasi, which battered towns in Australia's Queensland state with winds stronger than Hurricane Katrina, triggered the evacuation of towns in Victoria, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said.

"We are heading for some major problems in Victoria," Gillard told Channel Ten's "Meet The Press" program today. "This is going to get very tough indeed."

According to Bloomberg, heavy rain has brought the threat of localized flash flooding, Lachlan Quick of Victoria's State Emergency Service said in a phone interview from the state capital, Melbourne . Evacuation alerts were issued for towns including Halls Gap and Koo Wee Rup.

Yasi cut a destructive path through sugar- and banana- producing areas in Queensland earlier this week. Australia's southern and eastern states have been swamped by flash floods, rain and swollen rivers for the past two months, leaving 35 people dead and a damage bill that economists say may reach A$20 billion ($20 billion).

About 90,000 homes and businesses remain without power in Queensland, less than half of Ergon Energy Corp. customers in the cyclone-affected area, Rod Rehbein, a Brisbane-based spokesman for the energy retailer, said in a phone interview today. About 120,000 customers were without power yesterday.

Flood warnings are in place in areas of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, while regions of South Australia state have been issued with alerts for severe thunderstorms, the Bureau of Meteorology said on its website. Melbourne is forecast to have isolated showers today that will clear later.

Yasi is now a low-pressure system about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the Northern Territory town of Alice Springs, which has also been issued with a flood alert, the bureau said.

Victoria's emergency services received 6,100 calls for assistance between 4 p.m. Melbourne time on Feb. 4 and 9:30 a.m. today, with 4,546 of those in the Melbourne area, Quick said. About 118 people needed to be rescued.

The service has received 16,000 calls for assistance in the past five weeks, compared with 30,000 in the year to June 30, 2010, Quick said.

To contact the reporters for this story: Jason Scott in Perth at [e-mail]