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Ravers stuck dancing for days!!
Freakreation Festival
A PHONE hotline has been set up for people seeking information about the 1000 techno music fans stranded by floodwaters at a festival in northern NSW.
Regional State Emergency Service (SES) controller Steve Martin said the Freakreation Festival-goers will be stuck at least until midday on Wednesday at the Boonoo Boonoo River site, 40km from Tenterfield.
The all-ages music festival started on Friday and was due to end today.
"(However) there is about 5km of dirt road to the festival site that is like porridge at the moment, inaccessible to four-wheel or two-wheel drive vehicles," Mr Martin said.
"It's going to take us at least 48 hours before we can grade and regravel the road with heavy machinery and repair a vehicle bridge to the festival site - weather permitting.
"There are about 500 cars at the site and it will be very slippery and boggy, slowly trying to get them out without churning up the road.
It's going to be organised chaos when we start getting them out."
A helicopter with a three-tonne payload has been supplying fresh food, water, blankets and generator fuel to the site, three or four times a day since the bridge washed out on Saturday.
"They have sufficient supplies. They are staying calm and happy. The music is still going and they are still having a good time in the wet," Mr Martin said.
Apart from two medical evacuations for minor injury and illness, a group of three underprepared girls in their early teens from Noosa were the only other evacuations.
Mr Martin said they were reunited today with their parents, who had travelled 400km to Tenterfield to collect the junior ravers.
There is no mobile phone coverage at the festival site.
Organisers have one satellite phone but it must be kept clear of calls for contact with emergency services.
Dozens of concerned parents from across Australia have been calling the Tenterfield police station and local council chambers for information on the stranded ravers at the all-ages gig.
Mr Martin said the local SES had set up a hotline at Moree base in response to the growing demand for information.
The phone number is (02) 6757 2950.
The number of techno music fans stranded at the site was today revised up to 1000 by the SES from the earlier count of 700.
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