Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is visiting communities suffering from unusually severe flooding in the eastern state of Queensland. The flooding has already peaked in Bundaberg, where she flew to, before heading to Rockhampton, where waters are expected to rise. So far the floods have affected about 200,000 people over an area bigger than France and Germany combined, according to Queensland Premier Anna Bligh. There are 4,000 people who have been displaced.
On Friday, the weather is supposed to be drier. “This is without a doubt a tragedy on an unprecedented scale,” Ms Bligh told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. We now have 22 towns or cities that are either substantially flooded or isolated because the roads have been cut off to them.” BBC
Ms Gillard’s first stop was in Bundaberg, which has seen its worst flooding for four decades and has been split in two by the swollen Burnett River. Waters there are now receding. She spoke to evacuees and volunteers, and was briefed on the rescue and recovery effort. Also on the PM’s list of cities hit by the floods to visit is Emerald, a town of about 11,000 residents in central Queensland where waters have reached about 16m (52ft) and more than 1,200 people have been evacuated.
Manewhile, helicopters including Army Black Hawks have been ferrying residents to safer locations. Two smaller towns, Theodore and Condamine, have been completely evacuated. In Condamine some residents had been refusing to leave their houses. By the weekend, Rockhampton is bracing for rising water that officials say could cut the city off , which is in the North. Recovery work following the floods is expected to cost billions of dollars.
Ms Bligh said on Friday that the crisis was “a long way from over”, and that some areas could remain flooded for 10 days.
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