Five soldiers and a civilian were injured in an accident at a diking site in Souris, Man., where efforts are underway to staunch rising floodwaters.

All six people were taken to hospital in nearby Brandon on Monday after a hydraulic hose exploded on a dump truck that had been hauling sandbags.

The group had been resting at Plum Creek diking site at the time, and were sprayed with oily liquid according to a spokesperson for Canadian Froces Base Shilo.

The extent of their injuries remains unclear.

On Sunday, another 175 Canadian soldiers were called into Souris to help with flood control efforts. They joined a group of 200 soldiers from CFB Shilo who were already in the southwestern Manitoba town to help reinforce sandbag dikes along the Souris River.

Crews are working to shore up flood defenses before the river peaks in the area, which is expected to happen on Tuesday. Priority areas for fortification include the town's water and sewage treatment plants.

Souris is one among a number of towns across southwestern Manitoba that are facing the threat of rising water levels and are anticipating major repairs due to the flooding.

In the town of Melita, large stretches of road have been washed out by rising floodwaters.

Though large dikes topped off with sandbags appear to be restraining the river, the village's sewage lagoon system has been overwhelmed.

"There's going to be lots of erosion in and outside the system," Melita mayor Bob Walker told CTV.ca on Monday. "It'll all have to be cleaned out, there's going to be quite a big project on our hands."

Walker also predicted the town will need new levels of diking, a task that he says could cost over a million dollars.

"Certainly we're going to require funding from both levels of government," he said. "We've been meeting with all sorts of political people at various flood meetings."

Similar woes have hit a number of communities, leading Provincial Emergency Measures Minister Steve Ashton to described the flooding as the worst the province has seen.

Manitoba has "been in flood stage" for three months now and the waters have forced about 3,000 people from their homes, in some cases for weeks or months, Ashton told CTV News Channel Monday afternoon.

According to Walker, mayors from several Manitoba flood zones plan to call on the provincial and federal government for help rebuilding once the threat of the rising Souris subsides.

The consensus among residents living along Lake Manitoba is that it needs to be lowered to help prevent future floods.

In response, Premier Greg Selinger has said engineers are examining ways to lower water levels on Lake Manitoba and Lake St. Martin in the wake of this year's flooding, including by digging a trench between the two lakes.

"We'll work with the federal government to quickly implement feasible engineered options to lower water levels and give some much needed relief to hard hit communities," he said. "We just think that's an additional measure that'll show some support."

But the province doesn't know when it might drain water from the lake. Meanwhile it's promising more financial support in hopes of easing flood victims' stress.

Meanwhile provincial officials are offering property owners public money covering up to 86 per cent of flood-protection projects, to a maximum of $100,000 for homes, farms and businesses and $40,000 for cottages.

They also plan to bolster the Disaster Financial Assistance program and the special Lake Manitoba Financial Assistance Program, increasing compensation for damage to primary residences to a maximum of $240,000 and $270,000 respectively.

Waters ebbing

In Melita, Walker said the river has receded by a couple of centimetres -- a sign that there are better days ahead.

"We're hoping the worst is over but that river still has to go down about 12 or 13 feet before we breathe easy," he said.

On Sunday, officials in Souris were forced to sacrifice a historic swinging footbridge to save a dike protecting the community from surging water levels.

Mayor Darryl Jackson said the anchors holding the bridge cables could rip up the dike if the Souris River rose up over the bridge.

Every day, Souris resident Marilyn Pierce walks half a block from her house down to the barricaded river and wonders whether or not the water has risen. She uses a slide on a property in the distance as her visual measuring stick.

Though water is being retained by the town's dike system and most residents are safe, Pierce said the constant threat of flooding is unnerving.

"This sort of thing can just drive you crazy," she told CTV.ca. "We don't know what's going to happen; we just don't know."

Across the province, flooding problems won't likely subside for weeks or months to come, Ashton said. Water levels in Lake Manitoba, for example, aren't due to crest until late July.

"We're going to be fighting floods in Manitoba well into the fall and some cases into the winter of next year," he said.

With a report from CTV Winnipeg's Laura Lowe and files from The Canadian Press