Families swallowed whole by an inland tsunami ! Date: 12 January 2011
By Mark Smith
FIVE children were among 11 people killed when catastrophic flash flooding devastated the Australian state of Queensland, as a wall of water trapped at a dam above the city of Brisbane threatens even greater disaster.
The latest victim was a four-year-old boy who had toppled out of a rescue boat after his family attempted to flee their home in Marburg, 37 miles west of Brisbane.
Entire families were believed to be among the 78 missing in the wake of Monday's "inland tsunami", which turned streets into raging rivers that swept away cars and houses.
Among those confirmed dead were a woman and two children who were found in a car in Grantham and another woman and a child discovered in a car in central Toowoomba, both west of Brisbane. The violent floods over 48 hours had claimed 11 lives by last night, bringing the overall death toll from weeks of flooding in Queensland to 21.
A freak storm saw six inches of rain fall in half an hour near Toowoomba, creating a wall of water 26ft high in some places that swept through the town and the nearby Lockyer valley.
With officials warning of worse flooding to come, 10,000 homes have been abandoned in the state capital Brisbane as a "perfect storm" of flood conditions approaches.
The Wivenhoe Dam north of the city is holding back a massive backlog of water, and is expected to overflow at any time, as heavy rain and high tides are predicted over the next two days.
The Lord Mayor of Australia's third city, Campbell Newman, warned that the upper reaches of the Brisbane River had already burst their banks and water was heading rapidly towards the city.
He described the situation as "very serious" and explained the next few days will see a large-scale disaster unfolding across the city, ahead of an expected peak in the Brisbane River tomorrow. He added: "Thursday is going to be desperate. Thousands of homes will be affected."
The Wivenhoe Dam, built after the infamous 1974 floods to protect Brisbane, is currently full, and dam managers have no choice but to continue with increased, controlled releases.
Army Black Hawk helicopters lifted hundreds of people from rooftops in Toowoomba where they had waited anxiously through the night with the powerful wall of water threatening to sweep them away.
Queensland premier Anna Bligh warned: "We have a grim and desperate situation."
Prime minister Julia Gillard, who is being constantly updated on the drama, told Australians: "The nation does need to brace itself for the fact that the death toll as a result of yesterday's flash flooding and walls of water is likely to rise."
Hilltops have been turned into islands by the water which in places is expected to become 60ft deep and rival devastating floods that covered Queensland 37 years ago.
Food stores in Brisbane's city centre were stripped bare of supplies yesterday as panic began to spread.
Rescue teams, government officials and families have been left in a state of shock by the devastation which created scenes likened to a Hollywood disaster movie.
Cars were tossed about like corks, a railway line was buckled and homes and walls tumbled. What was left, said one local resident, was like the landscape in a war zone.
Horrifying footage has shown survivors clinging to trees and posts while others gripped roof tops hoping they would not be swept away.
Screams of desperate people could be heard in the background.
"We are now mired in a very different sort of disaster," said Miss Bligh, who had already been masterminding rescue efforts in earlier flooding to the north of Brisbane.
"This is testing our emergency resources and it will test us as a community and as people.
"It might be breaking our hearts at the moment, but it will not break our will."
The weather was so bad in the Lockyer Valley yesterday that rescue teams, either in storm-battered helicopters or on the waterlogged land, were unable to reach many properties.
She added: "Many of the people who are stranded or unaccounted for are families and young children. They span from the very young, right through to the very old, but we do have some whole families who, at this stage, are also unaccounted for.
"Until we can get our emergency people into those areas, we really can't give you anything more certain other than to say in all honesty we hold very grave concerns for a number of these people ."
In the town of Ipswich, 24 miles west of Brisbane, residents were told to start moving to higher ground as rain continued to lash down on the area, causing rivers and creeks to rise rapidly.
"I have to say we're daunted by the scale of this flood disaster," said Deputy Police Commissioner Ian Stewart, warning it was going to take some time to reach people in isolated areas.
Panel beater Colin McNamara told how he and a group of residents tried to get ropes to two women before they were swept away by the flooding.
He said: "They were petrified - absolutely petrified.