Queensland premier estimates clean-up will cost more than �3bn as grave fears remain for 61 missing people
The devastating floods that have killed at least 19 people in Queensland have left parts of Brisbane looking "like a war zone" that will require years of expensive reconstruction, the state premier has said.
Although the waters that have pummelled Australia's third-largest city this week peaked below the disastrous levels predicted, the torrent has flooded 12,000 homes in the city and left 118,000 buildings without power.
Officials have warned there could be further severe flooding in the coming weeks, with two months of the wet season ahead and already overflowing dams needing seven days to fall to normal levels to cope with more heavy rain.
The premier, Anna Bligh, described the flood crisis as "the worst natural disaster in our [state] history and possibly in the history of our nation", adding that clean-up and rebuilding costs could reach A$5bn (�3.1bn).
"We've seen three-quarters of our state having experienced the devastation of raging floodwaters and we now face a reconstruction task of postwar proportions," she said.
After surveying the damage from the air Bligh told reporters: "What I'm seeing looks more like a war zone in some places. All I could see was their rooftops ... underneath every single one of those rooftops is a horror story."
Queensland had been on high alert on Wednesday night, with forecasters predicting the Brisbane river would reach a peak of 5.5 metres at 5am. In the end the water level reached 4.46 metres, slightly lower than predicted and below the 5.45 metres reached in the 1974 flood. The lower levels have been attributed to the successful operation of the Wivenhoe dam, which was built in the aftermath of the floods three decades ago.
"If it wasn't for Wivenhoe dam we certainly would have seen a much more significant flood in the city of Brisbane," said a flood forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology.
The deluge has been blamed on a La Ni�a weather pattern in the Pacific. Last year was Australia's third wettest on record and forecasters predict an above average cyclone season.
Power was cut to many areas in and around Brisbane because of fears the water could cause electrocutions. Boats and river pontoons torn adrift by the deluge lay piled on river banks as brown water raced past.
The body of a 24-year-old man who died after being sucked into a drain in the suburb of Durack has been found, and police said another man's body had been discovered in Myall creek, which runs through the town of Dalby.
Grave fears remained for residents in the Lockyer valley and Toowoomba where many are still unaccounted for. Officials said 61 people were missing after more than a fortnight of flooding across the state.
Rescuers were continuing to search for bodies in Grantham and Withcott, two towns in the Lockyer valley that were among the communities hit by a devastating flash flood earlier in the week. Hundreds of army and emergency services personnel were fanning out across farmland in search of bodies around Grantham, home to fewer than 400 people.
Power and phone lines had been cut there since the "inland instant tsunami" tore through it on Monday. One woman told how residents sprinted along the railway tracks for higher ground.
"They were grabbing people who'd been washed down and pulling them up on to the line as they were running ? It was absolutely horrific," she told Sky News.
"My friend has lost his wife and two of his children. He saved the eldest one but the little one was ripped out of his arms. She was due to start [school] this year and she's gone."
Another resident, Kevin, said he did not know whether Grantham would recover. "We only had a pub, a shop and a garage," he said. "That's the town and they're all gone."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/13/flooded-brisbane-war-zone-queensland
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