Sydney - Parts of inland Australia in drought for 10 years
were hit with soaking rain Thursday and Friday, providing relief for
hundreds of despairing pastoralists.
Some of the driest, most remote parts of Outback Australia
received their best rains in more than a decade with more than a
quarter of the annual average rainfall falling within 12 hours.
Grazier Terry Smith of Scarsdale sheep and cattle station outside
the mining town of Broken Hill said: 'We've had almost 2.5 inches
(63.5 millimetres.) It's about a quarter of the area's annual average
rainfall. It's bloody good rain. There should be a few smiles around
today. My dams will be full now, which will give me water for 12 to
18 months.'
One of the driest towns in Australia, Wilcannia, in the far west
of the state of New South Wales, was deluged with more than 50
millimetres of rain.
Pauline Kohe, who checks the range gauge in the tiny Outback
hamlet of Pooncarie, where heavy rains have not fallen for more than
five years, said: 'The hailstones just got bigger and bigger. A lot
of them were the size of golf balls. They reckon they have never seen
anything life that out here. The ground was covered like snow. It was
so loud, you could not hear. All the buildings out here have tin
roofs.'
Margaret Hughes, who runs a sheep station in the area said: 'We
can now take showers again, instead of washing out of a bucket. We
have been washing out of buckets for two years.'
Despite the rains, Australia remains in the grip of its worst
drought on record.
Three of the nation's largest cities - the national capital
Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane - are now so short of water that
bans are to be placed on the use of any tap water outdoors.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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