As it happened: Rochester, Seymour and Yea residents ordered to evacuate; Bendigo warned over significant flooding

Staying with the state’s SES boss Tim Wiebusch, who said there was an emergency warning for people in Seymour to evacuate, with at least 50 homes at risk of flooding.

He said this was because of riverine flooding, rather than flash-flooding due to heavy rains.

An emergency warning [to] evacuate immediately is now in place for the Seymour community. And in particular for those that are immediately around the Goulbourn River at the Seymour township. This is flooding has occurred as a result of local tributaries in that area, rather than outflows from Lake Eildon.

In this case we’re asking residents to evacuate now, there are 50 homes that are immediately at risk of seeing over-floor flooding and another 140 properties that could see flooding below the floor level.

He warned those homes were also at risk of being isolated if roads were cut off.

[For those] 200 properties, we are asking people to evacuate now, with the flooding peak around seven metres expected to occur sometime today.

Victoria’s SES chief operations officer Tim Wiebusch said volunteers have responded to 1200 calls for help as a result of the heavy rain and flooding across the state.

He’s also gone into more detail about the rescues Emergency Management Commissioner Rick Nugent mentioned earlier. Wiebusch said:

“Unfortunately, 38 [calls] of those were related to flood rescues, and in the majority of cases it’s people taking their lives in their own hands and attempting to drive through flash floodwaters.

We cannot emphasise enough, do not attempt to drive through floodwaters. It could be the last decision you make.

Of those, 16 of those flood rescues occurred up around the Bendigo area, to the north overnight ... We saw eight of those around Goornong, four of those at Heathcote, two at Lockwood and two at Woodvale.”

The Bureau of Meteorology’s Michael Efron says there has been record-breaking rainfall in some parts of the state.

Around the Heathcote region, at least 184mm of rain fell in 24 hours.

Redesdale recorded 117 mm of rain, which was a new record for the small town.

“That’s a daily record for any month with over 120 years of data,” Efron told reporters at the State Emergency Control Centre moments ago.

Daily rainfall records have also been broken in Rochester, which has had 125mm, and in Bendigo, which has recorded 92mm in the 24 hours to 9am.

Efron said there were still moderate to heavy falls expected in central and eastern parts of the state, with a severe thunderstorm warning for the state’s north-east with heavy and potentially intense rainfall.

A severe weather warning is also in place for eastern parts of the state.

“The good news is that through the rest of this afternoon and into the evening, we are going to see that rain contracting to the east of the state and then clearing into the early hours of Tuesday,” Efron said.

Turning now to Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner Rick Nugent, who is speaking at the State Emergency Control Centre about the floods.

The commissioner has said there was a record amount of rain across Victoria over the past 24 hours.

“There were over three months of rain recorded in Heathcote in a 24-hour period,” he said.

He added the heavy rainfall led to flash flooding at numerous locations overnight, mostly north of Bendigo.

Nugent said emergency services had to rescue 38 people across the state, including people whose homes were flooded, who drove through floodwaters and others caught up in flash flooding events.

He once again urged the public not to drive through floodwater.

Nugent said they were expecting more rain across the state, and it would continue to fall as it moved across to the east of Victoria.

“There are major flood warnings currently for Rochester and Seymour, and flooding at Shepparton and Wangaratta is expected mid-week.”

VIC SES chief operations officer Tim Wiebusch, Emergency Management Commissioner Rick Nugent and Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Michael Efron gave an update on Victoria’s severe weather at 2.30pm.

You can watch the press conference in full below.

Wild weather has caused travel delays for holidaymakers as airlines cancel flights coming in and out of Melbourne.

Thunderstorms and heavy downpours had caused the cancellation of 74 flights between Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast by Monday afternoon.

Of the flights cancelled, 33 of them were from Virgin Airlines, 21 were Jetstar flights and 20 were Qantas flights.

Melbourne Airport has advised travellers to check airlines for delays in departure times during storms.

Closer to Melbourne now, and a minor flood warning has been issued for the Yarra River from Warrandyte to Abbotsford.

Up to 30mm of rain is forecast for parts of the catchment on Monday. The Yarra River catchment has recorded rainfall of up to 56mm in the upper part of the catchment and 55mm in the lower part of the catchment since 9am on Sunday.

The Yarra River at Heidelberg is currently at 5.52 metres and rising. It was sitting just below the six-metre flood level on Monday afternoon. Emergency services have advised it is expected to exceed the minor flood level in the area later today.

The level of the Yarra River at Abbotsford is currently at 3.06 metres, which is above the 2.7 metres minor flood level. It is expected to peak tomorrow before more serious flooding occurs.

Emergency services have advised minor flooding in the Yarra catchment is affecting low-lying areas adjacent to the waterway including bicycle paths.

V/Line has cancelled a number of its regional services as thunderstorms continue across the north and north-east of the state.

There are also delays of about 10 minutes on Melbourne’s Belgrave Line because of water over the tracks between Bayswater and Upper Ferntree Gully, Metro Trains said.

V/Line said Albury services are unable to run as scheduled due to floodwaters.

The 12.04pm and 12:51pm midday services from Southern Cross to Albury did not run due to flooding on the tracks. The Mansfield to Melbourne scheduled coach service is unable to visit Glenburn due to road closures caused by flooding.

“Scheduled coaches services from and to from Barmah, Deniliquin and Barham are being diverted through Murchison causing delays of 60 to 90 minutes,” V/line advised.

“These services are unable to access Heathcote, Tooborac, Kilmore or Wallan due to flooding at Heathcote and passengers are asked to seek alternative transport or defer travel from those locations.”

Train and coach services are also suspended on the Bendigo to Echuca line due to flooding at Goornong. Passengers have been asked to defer travel until further notice. The Swan Hill to Bendigo coach services are also experiencing diversions between Kerang and Inglewood and are not stopping in between the towns.