Home News – Australian Flood Crisis
- January 2nd, 2011
- Posted by EUEditor
Summer floods across tropical and sub-tropical areas of North-eastern Australia have displaced 200000 people.
Small towns have come under threat in inland areas, and along the Eastern coastal strip where there are concentrations of urban population.
In a wet Summer like 2010-11, cyclones or rain depressions cross the Northern coasts, bringing heavy tropical downpours, and a run-off; floodwaters coursing South through the inland towards Lake Eyre, or running Eastward, posing a threat to coastal cities.
This time, two-thirds of the State of Queensland (see map) and parts of New South Wales are subject to flooding – an area estimated to equal the size of France and Germany together.
Emergency and rescue services are experienced in dealing with natural disasters and well enough resourced for most events, though normally one at a time — rarely having to cope with crises across such a vast area all at once.
In the evacuations, one rural town, Theodore in Central Queensland, population 450, has been totally inundated, and deserted of people while the floods last. The large mining and agricultural town of Emerald, 11000 population, inland form Rockhampton, suffered heavy flooding and was beginning a clean-up at the start of this week.
Several rescues have occurred, flood victims being pulled out of fast running streams, down from trees, of from cars awash in the flow; ten deaths have been reported during the Summer period, and several persons are missing.
Two of the main cities have come under threat.
Parts of Bundaberg (population 68000), a sugar-growing area, were under water on the weekend.
Today (2.1.10), large floods coursing down the Fitzroy River are expected to swamp suburbs of Rockhampton, (pronounced: rock-HAMPTON), a beef export and tourism centre located exactly on the Tropic of Capricorn, population 77000 (see map).
The city has been cut off to the South by initial flooding, the airport is closed and government officials say Rockhampton is likely to become surrounded by the rising floodwaters.
News of Summer calamity in Australia more often involves a tragedy with bushfires, which occur in Southern parts of the country, where the summers are dry.
Earlier news in the present Summer centred on a sporting disaster: this Monday, 3.1.11, the cricket team faces England once more, at Sydney, in what has been a bad tour for the host team — the trophy, “the Ashesâ€, already retained by the visitors.
Pictures
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