Floods isolate rural towns in south-east Australia

The town's residents had only just begun to recover when more rain caused a return of the flooding this week.

- Jonathan Pearlman

Two weeks ago, the town of Forbes in southeast Australia experienced one of the worst flooding disasters in decades after a river broke its banks, sending water rushing into homes and cutting off roads and highways.

About 1,000 of its 9,000 residents have been evacuated, and the town has been split in two. Hundreds of homes and businesses are underwater, including many that had previously been submerged in the earlier flood. Schools have been closed, and motorboats now ferry people and goods across town above roads that have turned into waterways.

"We've got people who have lost absolutely everything," Forbes Mayor Phyllis Miller told AAP.

Across southeast Australia, residents have spent more than two months in the grip of devastating floods that are causing mass evacuations, destroying houses and farmland, and bringing life to a standstill.

In the state of New South Wales (NSW), more than 110 flood warnings and 23 evacuation orders were in place on Thursday.