The Australian Defence Force (ADF) will provide aircraft and personnel to assist the evacuation of hundreds of residents from flooded remote communities in the Northern Territory, the federal government has confirmed.
Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt made the announcement early Thursday, saying he had approved a request from the NT government for ADF assistance.
"I've been in contact with NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles MLA to offer Federal support to keep people safe," he wrote.
About 700 people are in the process of being relocated from the remote communities of Kalkarindji, Daguragu, Pigeon Hole, and Palumpa, which have experienced major flooding after heavy rainfall.
The residents are being flown to Katherine, before being taken by bus to Darwin, where they will be housed in temporary accommodation.
About 70 residents classed as vulnerable were the first to be evacuated Wednesday, with authorities expecting to relocate the whole group by the end of Thursday.
Once in Darwin, the evacuees will be housed in temporary accommodation at Marrara Stadium and Foskey Pavilion.
The NT Emergency Services Regional Controller, Commander Danny Bacon, told ABC Radio Darwin on Thursday that the centres would be able to adequately house the hundreds of evacuees.
"Both those facilities are geared up for an evacuation of this nature, so if additional facilities are needed at those venues, then they will be provided as part of this evacuation," he said.
He also warned residents may need to stay in the centres for some time, with the clean-up effort in flood-affected communities expected to be significant.
He said houses in those communities had been inundated by water.
"An assessment will be made by the survey team to see what sort of body of work needs to do to bring those dwellings back to a habitable state," he said.
"I'd say it would be certainly a while."
In its latest alert, the Bureau of Meteorology said the Victoria River at Kalkarindji was falling, and was currently sitting at 14.75 metres.
The BOM warned the Victoria River is expected to remain above the major flood level (14 metres) until Thursday evening.
Chief executive of the Gurindji Corporation, Des Green, said emergency services had acted as quickly as they could to get people out of Daguragu and into Kalkarindji on Wedensday.
"Members of the local police services put their own lives at risk the day prior trying to get across on flood boats and it just wasn't tenable, and then they had to rely on helicopters the following day," he said.
He said assessors from the ADF were arriving in Kalkarindji to examine the state of the airstrip and figure out which planes could safely land there to evacuate people.
"At the moment, we're doing a bit of a piecemeal approach and a risk-based approach to evacuations, using smaller aircraft out to Katherine," he said.
"Obviously that's a slower evacuation effort, but everyone is safe. If we get a larger aircraft, we can obviously increase the number of people that we can get."
"We could have everyone out today.
"In the absence of that not occurring, we just need to keep everyone informed on what's happening and keep everyone safe."
Mr Green said the flooding had been "traumatic", but residents were already rallying.
"Individually, people have had some significant losses, in terms of their houses, their personal effects. That's traumatic for anyone," he said.
"We just need to work closely with them and ensure as a broader community we continue to make sure that they feel like they have support, communications.
"I think when we take time to sit down and look at what's happened, there are going to be plenty of lessons learned, but there will also be some opportunities for us to work together and rebuild."
Victoria Daly Regional Council Mayor Brian Pedwell said residents of Daguragu had told him how shocked and scared they had been to see the flooding in their community.
"Daguragu in my lifetime (has) never been flooded, and (with) how it rose so quickly and rapidly, community members were very frightened and scared," he told ABC Radio Darwin on Thursday.
"How high it rose into their homes, I think not one house was safe in Daguragu."
