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February 26, 2013

SES volunteers and firefighters were called to Silverleaf earlier this afternoon to evacuate 10 people stranded by floodwaters.

They have been taken to Murgon.

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The heavy rainfall has caused a small collapse in a sewerage trunk main near River Road in Kingaroy.

South Burnett Regional Council has installed a pump to bypass the collapsed main.

South Burnett Water and Sewerage Manager Russell Hood said there were usually two operational mains working in the area and that under normal conditions this would be sufficient, but with the large inflows of stormwater into the system it was necessary to install the pump.

The main had been scheduled to be replaced later this year, but council will now bring forward this work.

A pump is being used to bypass the sewerage main failure near River Road in Kingaroy

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The rain has also forced the closure of both the Kingaroy and Nanango landfills.

This means that both domestic and commercial waste collection services will be disrupted.

The South Burnett Regional Council has advised residents and business operators to place their waste bins out as normal on their particular collection day and leave it out until it is emptied. At this stage it is anticipated collections could be up to two days late.

All other waste facilities across the South Burnett are operating as normal.

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The Emergency Action Plan for Gordonbrook Dam was automatically activated by the South Burnett Regional Council at 7:00am today.

At that time, the dam level was 1.5m above Full Supply Level and the spillway was discharging at 996 ML/hour.

Council says localised flooding can be expected in the Stuart River downstream of the dam.

UPDATE: Gordonbrook Dam spillway appears to have peaked at 1.73m. Council expects it to slowly start dropping if there are no further inflows.

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Flood debris on the Barkers Creek Bridge (Kingaroy-Cooyar Road) near Brooklands earlier today (Photo: Grant Newson)

The Local Disaster Management Committees for both Gympie and the South Burnett have been activated although it appears at this point that the worst of this crisis may now have passed.

The South Burnett committee met today at 11:00am.

The message from the Committee was that should the fine weather hold, the floodwaters throughout are region will generally recede over the next 24 hours.

It will meet again at 4:00pm today.

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South Burnett Regional Council has opened evacuation centres in both Kingaroy (at the Town Hall) and Murgon (at the PCYC).  There are three adults in the Kingaroy centre and 13 people in Murgon.

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