Brisbane floods clean-up under way

THE swamped Australian city of Brisbane yesterday began the heartbreaking task of cleaning up after its worst floods in decades, as searchers made the grisly discovery of another body.

Waters drained from the country’s third-largest city to expose the full horror of the devastation wrought when the Brisbane River burst its banks, with search teams recovering the body of a woman in the nearby Lockyer Valley.

Brisbane residents nervously returned to see what remained of their homes and businesses, as the muddy brown soup that had covered buildings up to their roofs dropped to reveal its aftermath.

“There is a lot of heartache and grief as people start to see for the first time what has happened to their homes and their streets,” Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said.

“In some cases we have street after street after street where every home has been inundated to the roof level, affecting thousands of people.”

She urged locals to help each other as the city of two million people began its daunting “post-war” rebuilding effort.

“I encourage people please to make an effort to help your friends, help your families,” she said, as locals slopped out thick layers of stinking mud from their homes and businesses and tried to salvage possessions.

The river dropped two metres from its peak of 14 feet, eight inches, reached on Thursday, exposing damage that will add dramatically to Queensland’s estimated flood reconstruction bill of Aus$5bn.

More than 26,000 homes were flooded in Brisbane, 11,900 of them completely, and their owners are likely to be homeless for weeks or even months. Electricity remained cut to thousands of homes, and many key roads were still blocked.

An unbearable stench filled the air while the twisted remains of boats, parts of buildings, a large chunk of a concrete walkway and other debris lay on mud banks throughout the city.

At least 16 people have been confirmed killed in the floods in the last four days, most of them when flash floods hit the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane, and the town of Toowoomba on Monday.

Officials said the body of one of those who died was recovered 80 kilometres from where that person went missing, indicating the possibility that the bodies of some of the flood’s victims might never be found.

Such fears were also raised by state coroner Michael Barnes, who visited the Lockyer Valley, were most of the 16 confirmed dead were from, during a trip to the area with detectives and forensic experts. Fifty-three people from Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley are still missing.

Barnes, who is likely oversee the inquest into the tragedy, told reporters “it could be some weeks before the search is completed” and that it was “possible that some of those swept away may never be found”.