BRISBANE, Australia, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Australia's flood crisis will likely be the most expensive natural disaster in Australian history, the country's treasurer said Monday.
"It looks like this is possibly going to be, in economic terms, the largest natural disaster in our history," Wayne Swan, who is also deputy prime minister, told national public broadcaster Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Rebuilding flooded areas -- including Brisbane, the capital and most populous city in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland -- "will involve billions of dollars of commonwealth money, and also state government money," and will likely take years, Swan said.
The massive cleanup ahead of the enormous rebuilding effort began this weekend.
Since December, two-thirds of Queensland -- an area twice the size of Texas -- has been beset by flooding that has left more than 25 people dead and scores of others missing.
The unremitting floodwaters rolled southward into Victoria Monday as 3,500 people were evacuated in northern towns.
The floodwaters now threaten 1,400 homes in 43 other communities, the BBC reported.
More than 100 homes in Horsham, a town of 14,000 midway between Melbourne and Adelaide, were at least partly underwater late Monday despite some 45,000 sandbags laid by residents, including members of local sports teams, and State Emergency Service volunteers, Horsham Mayor Michael Ryan told the ABC.
The Wimmera River, which has flooded Horsham to historic proportions six other times since 1894, is expected to peak at 12.6 feet Tuesday, and its floodwaters will literally split the town in two, the emergency service said.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited inundated Echuca in northern Victoria Monday.
Echuca, an Aboriginal name meaning "Meeting of the Waters," is situated at the junction of the Goulburn, Campaspe and Murray rivers.
In Melbourne, the Australian Open, the first of the four annual Grand Slam tennis tournaments, began a day after tennis stars came together for two exhibition matches to raise money for flood victims.
The Rally for Relief at Rod Laver Arena featured Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Caroline Wozniacki, Kim Clijsters and others. UPI
