GREAT FLOODS IN VICTORIA.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 715, 24 September 1870, Page 2

GREAT FLOODS IN VICTORIA.

The steamer Claud Hamilton arrived at the Bluff from Melbourne oa the 16th instant. She left Melbourne on the 10th. The papers of that date state that the week previons will be memorable in connection with the heaviest general floods known throughout the Colony, GHppsland alone excepted. The Yarra, at Melbourne, was not so high as in the flood of sixty-three, but the Saltwater River was a foot higher, and the Race-coursa bridge was carried away. Great damage has been done to the factories on the lower Yarra, also at Ballarat and Smythesdale. Westward to Warnambool the creeks and rivers rose unprecedented y, and eastward, through A.voca, Maryborough, and the entire midland to Castlemaine, thence to Seymour, Benalla, AVangarattn, Beech-* worth, and along the Murray and Campaspe to Echuca. Everywhere there is the same story of bridges, fences, and culverts being carried away. The mails were stopped, cattle and sheep drowned, and crops irreparably injured. Two men were drowned saving property, and there were many narrow escapes. Families are being rescued through roofs of houses. Accounts from the Malmesbury reservoir state that it had a narrow escape, but the main embankment stood well. A Launeeston telegram reports floods, with great damage to the railway.