Australia : Toowoomba 2011

Grave fears for dozens missing in deadly floods

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Residents in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane, sit on a roof as flash floods sweep through.
(ABC TV)

This is, as I said, a grim and desperate situation and it's far from over - we are right in the middle of the emergency rescue response
– Premier Anna Bligh

It was almost like a movie scene - I went to a car park, it's a council car park - and we had cars stacked on top of each other
– Toowoomba councillor Joe Ramia

Yesterday afternoon at about three o'clock I think it was, I got woken up to go and have a look and there were houses floating past then
– Grantham local Christopher Field

The bitumen is all lifted on the road, the creek banks have washed away
– Withcott resident Holly Webster

Eight people are dead and grave fears are held for more than 70 people still missing after yesterday's unprecedented flash flooding in southern Queensland.

Young children are among those dead after a wall of water raged down the Great Dividing Range at Toowoomba, crashing through several smaller towns in the Lockyer Valley below.

Police say more deaths are expected but the numbers cannot be estimated.
It is unknown how many people remain stranded on their roofs as the torrent heads east, while residents in low-lying areas of the Brisbane Valley are being urged to leave as a severe storm looms over the region.

Premier Anna Bligh says the major centres of concern today are Toowoomba, Murphys Creek, Helidon, Grantham, Gatton, Glenore Grove and other places downstream.

Emergency authorities are being assisted in search and rescue efforts by aircraft and four-wheel drive vehicles from the Defence Force and the Australian Federal Police.

The Red Cross says it has not been able to get into the affected areas because conditions have been too dangerous.Evacuations are continuing across the Lockyer Valley, while people in Esk, Toogoolawah and Forest Hill are being moved to higher ground.

There is flooding in Nanango and Cherbourg is cut off.

The Warrego Highway between Ipswich and Toowoomba is cut in many places and motorists have been told to stay off roads in order to give priority access to emergency vehicles.

Ms Bligh is warning residents to listen to radio reports and more than 18,000 customers are without power.

"We know that we have people stranded and people lost. We are doing our best to protect our emergency workers," she said.

"There's no doubt that we are now in a very different sort of disaster. What it is doing is testing our emergency response. It will test us as communities and as people.

She says more water will be released from Wivenhoe Dam today to try and reduce the flood threat.

"The releases being made from Wivenhoe Dam are not optional," she said.
"We need to make sure that we protect people down this river system."

The Premier says Dalby and Chinchilla to the west are facing flood peaks today as high, if not a higher, than what they faced 10 days ago.

She confirmed 165 people were evacuated from Dalby overnight and more emergency resources are ready to be deployed.

"It is not a lack of resources that is hampering our effort - it is the very heavy weather that is keeping helicopters on the ground and keeping some of our SES out of the swollen rivers," she said.

"So we are in desperate circumstances and we hope the weather starts to lift just a little so we can get in and start to assess how many people are still on rooftops and really get in to start to do those heavy water searches for the people we know are missing.

"This is, as I said, a grim and desperate situation and it's far from over - we are right in the middle of the emergency rescue response."

Home swept away

The SES says it received 4,500 calls for assistance from Toowoomba where flash flooding likened to an inland tsunami washed away cars and houses.

Long-serving Toowoomba regional councillor Joe Ramia says he has never seen anything like it.

"It was almost like a movie scene - I went to a car park, it's a council car park - and we had cars stacked on top of each other," he said.

"Those cars, the only way they could get up there would be to float up... you know float one car on top of another car."

In the town of Grantham four people have died and police say more than 10 are missing.

Local man Christopher Field says the rain has not stopped and the water started to rise again this morning.

He told AM about seven houses have been swept away.

"Yesterday afternoon at about three o'clock I think it was, I got woken up to go and have a look and there were houses floating past then," he said.

"It got a bit worse overnight. We came down about 10 o'clock last night and we were just talking to the SES that were getting people off roofs."

Roads cut

Late last night as the waters receded a convoy of cars is understood to have left Withcott under police escort for nearby Toowoomba.

A resident who was in the convoy says those who stayed are taking shelter at the local school.

Holly Webster runs a business in Withcott which was destroyed in last night's flooding, but she has been stuck in nearby Gatton, which is also flooded.

"All the roads are cut in every direction. There's deluges of water - it's still pouring down," she said.

"There's water still pouring down from the hills, covering the roads... the dams are all busting their banks and have just flown over the roads.

"The bitumen is all lifted on the road, the creek banks have washed away.

"When all the water goes down the amount of land that farmers would have lost will be huge. There's irrigation pipes, all sorts of livestock and equipment just rushing down the river."

The Brisbane Valley town of Esk was also hit by severe flash flooding.
Mayor Graeme Lehmann says cars and a house were washed away and buildings were swamped.

"We've had a couple of people that do a lot of work around the jockey club actually got washed away and they clung to a tree," he said.

"Luckily there happened to be a helicopter in the area and we managed to be able to rescue them so that was really good news."

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