Flooded Outback Towns Evacuated; Four Killed

Army helicopters evacuated two Australian outback towns today as the worst floods in 100 years surged downstream, sweeping away cars, houses and hastily erected barricades.

Police said four people died in the floods, which rescue officials describe as possibly the worst natural disaster in Australia since Cyclone Tracy devastated the northern city of Darwin in 1974, killing more than 50 people.

All but 200 of the 2,500 residents of Nyngan were ferried to dry land after floodwater from the Bogan River burst through a levee of sandbags built over the last week and swamped the northern New South Wales town in hours.

A hundred people, including children and pregnant women, were flown out of the Queensland cattle town of Cunnamulla by helicopter and two Hercules aircraft.

The rest of the population of 1,700 is nervously watching as levees, reinforced with sandbags, were put to the test by muddy waters that have inundated houses on the edge of the town and spilled across huge areas of farmland.

Around one-third of Queensland has been under water, and officials estimate more than 400,000 square miles is affected by the floods--twice the area of France.