By Michael Perry

SYDNEY, June 11 (Reuters) - Thousands of Australians started returning home on Monday after floodwaters in the wine-rich Hunter Valley eased, but residents further downstream near the coal port of Newcastle may be evacuated, officials said.

"It is like a ghost town," Lee Bennett told local radio when he returned to the town of Maitland which was evacuated on Sunday.

"The SES (state emergency services) are collecting sandbags. Its just a matter of waiting for people to return."

The major storm which has been battering Australia's east coast, causing the worst flooding in the Hunter Valley for 30 years and beaching a coal ship, eased on Sunday.

Nine people died in the storm.

Around 5,000 residents from Maitland were evacuated on Sunday fearing the swollen Hunter River would break levees overnight. Floodwaters failed to breach sandbag levees, leaving the town dry but surrounding farms flooded.

"We now have the all clear," said New South Wales State Emergency Services spokesman Phil Campbell. "Those people behind the levees...may return to their businesses and homes."

However some 400 residents from the farms outside Maitland were unable to return home due to floodwaters.

The floodwaters moved downstream on Sunday towards Newcastle, one of Australia's major coal export ports, but were not expected to cause severe flooding.

SEWAGE OVERFLOWS

Emergency officials warned people returning home to avoid floodwaters due to raw sewage overflows.

"You can imagine the amount of rubbish that is coming out of drains and out of gutters. You wouldn't swim in a sewage farm and basically I can't understand people who play in floodwater," said SES spokesman Steve Delaney.

Some 50,000 homes are without power as a result of the storm and electricity officials said some would remain without power for a week as power lines and poles had been destroyed.

Despite the flooding rains, Sydney's main catchment area received very little rain, with just 40 mm falling in the city's main Warragamba Dam.

The wild seas which beached the bulk carrier "Pasha Bulker" on Friday had eased and a salvage crew was examining whether to try and refloat the ship, said Newcastle port authorities.

"That is what the salvage team is looking at at the moment," said Keith Powell from the Newcastle Ports Corporation.

"They will inspect the structure and the integrity of the vessel and then it will be up to that salvage team to make recommendations about that salvage," he said.

Authorities had feared a marine disaster if the giant ship broke up and spilt its 700 tonnes of fuel and oil.

All coal loading operations in Newcastle have been suspended until the seas calm down, leaving some 50-plus ships anchored offshore. ($1=A$1.21)

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