Relief On The Way As Victoria’s Flood Clean-Up Begins

Flood-ravaged towns in central northern Victoria are starting the long road to recovery as the clean-up begins.

With so many homes and businesses damaged by torrential rains and subsequent flooding, Disaster Relief Australia is working with the Victorian State Control Centre to deploy volunteers to where they can go or are needed. 

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In addition, the Victorian government has announced $5.5 million on food relief.

With Foodbank Victoria, OzHarvest, Second Bite and FareShare to each receive up to $750,000 to help get food to flood effected victims.

The state government has dug even deeper spending $500,000 on the neighbourhood houses service and $1 million towards regional food hubs and multicultural food providers.

Bendigo Foodshare and Shepparton Foodshare are also providing food relief in and around their areas.

Meantime, rain has pommelled hardest-hit flood zones in Victoria and NSW overnight.

The Bureau of Meteorology on Friday said rain has already started drenching parts of northern Victoria, likely to increase rivers flood levels.

Senior meteorologist Jonathan How told ABC News Breakfast some of Victoria’s hardest hit areas, like Rochester are already under a cloud of rain.

"They did see 6mm overnight. It isn't a much but because everything is so wet, the Campaspe River recorded a rise of about 15-20cm just on that rainfall alone, so it just goes to show how wet these catchments are and even a little bit of rainfall can cause flooding to basically reinvigorate all over again," he said.

The Bureau has pushed Echuca’s expected flood peak to next week, in a bid to give residents more time to prepare.

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