Drenched and anxious, Victorian and Tasmanian communities band together as flood waters rage

Rural towns worked to evacuate livestock and dig trenches as rivers burst, with some areas facing the worst flooding in almost 50 years

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Emily Buchanan had spent much of Thursday watching the Goulburn River spill over the river flats. She lives at Seymour, in the southern end of the Goulburn Valley, on a house high on a hill overlooking the river as it flows south of the town.

The river spilled its banks at 1pm, Buchanan said, and by 4pm the water was appreciably" higher.