SEVEN PEOPLE were killed yesterday and several others are missing, after raging floodwaters swept through Toowoomba in southeast Queensland. The city got more than 16cm of rain (six inches) in 36 hours, on top of an already saturated catchment, causing flash flooding and landslides.
“There has been loss of life . . . and there’s massive damage,” Toowoomba mayor Peter Taylor told ABC radio. “It’s just a real disaster scene.
“It’s just blown shops away, there’s water literally running out of the front door of shops here as a major flash flood came through the middle of the city.”
At least one city centre building collapsed in Toowoomba and there were reports of another being washed into a creek.
Scores of people were stranded in buildings in the city’s main street and there were multiple calls for help from people stuck in or on their cars.
The floods are unprecedented in the region. A year ago, the city’s three dams were close to empty, holding just 7 per cent of their capacity.
Even before Monday’s deluge, all three were overflowing.
A resident of nearby Grantham said the water was rising a metre every few seconds at one point yesterday. “As far as the eye can see, north, south, east and west is just water,” he said. “I’ve been here since 1960 and I have never, ever seen water like it.”
Queensland premier Anna Bligh was meeting the state’s flood recovery committee when she heard about the situation in Toowoomba.
“Just as we might be moving to a stabilised situation this afternoon in an emerging and evolving situation, there has been a massive deluge in the city of Toowoomba,” she said.
“The creeks through the centre of the city have overflowed, there are swift water rescues being undertaken and the city of Toowoomba is effectively split.”
The death toll since the current floods started in Queensland in late November now stands at 17.
The town of Gympie was also bracing for flooding last night, with 4,500 homes already without power.
“We get this every 10 years or so in Gympie,” local man Shane McAdam told The Irish Times last night. “A couple of the pubs will probably go under. They still have lines on the wall from previous floods.”
Mr McAdam, who spent part of his childhood in Tydavnet, Co Monaghan, added: “Gympie has a flood plan. Toowoomba though, that’s a tragedy.”