Flood crisis worsens :

Australia town faces isolation

AUSTRALIA: Tens of thousands of residents of a major Australian town faced complete isolation Tuesday from a worsening flood crisis swamping vast swathes of the country, as Washington offered aid.

Officials in Rockhampton carried out forced evacuations and issued warnings about marauding snakes and crocodiles as one of Australia's worst floods, which has already hit dozens of towns, looked set to sever its last road link.

Residents sandbagged homes and shops in the regional centre, where 200 houses are already flooded and the Fitzroy River bisecting the town has swollen to 9.2 metres (30 feet), expected to peak at 9.4 metres on Wednesday or Thursday.

"I know people around here are pretty tough, but if your house gets smashed up pretty bad and you have lost all of your kids' presents (it's difficult)," State Emergency Service (SES) operations director Scott Mahaffey told AFP. Rockhampton, 500 kilometres (300 miles) from Brisbane and a hub for the farming and coal-mining region, is now the focus for what officials call "biblical" floods affecting 200,000 people in an area the size of France and Germany. Weeks of heavy rains followed by tropical cyclone Tasha have swollen rivers to record levels in some cases, deluging mines and farms, washing away bridges and forcing military evacuations of entire towns by helicopter.

Rising brown waters have closed the airport and railway in Rockhampton, population 75,000. But officials said the final road link from the town's north remained open Tuesday, reversing earlier statements it was cut. Tuesday, AFP