Flash floods hit Toowoomba in Queensland, Australia

 

 

 

Flash floods have hit Queensland, killing one person with several more missing, as heavy rains continue to pound the Australian state.

A massive deluge of water overwhelmed Toowoomba, a city west of the state capital Brisbane, without warning.
A rescue operation is under way to reach those trapped in cars and on the roofs of buildings, officials say.
Eleven people have died since the tropical storms began in November, the worst flooding in the state in decades.

Some 200,000 people have been affected across Queensland. The flooding been so widespread that while some communities are still bracing themselves for the worst, in others the clean-up is well under way.
The forecast is for more rain to come, and there are reports of flooding in neighbouring New South Wales.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has warned that the recovery will take a "long time back".
'No warning' Toowoomba officials said the person who died was a female pedestrian. Five people are reported missing.
The city's mayor described the scale of the damage caused by the flash floods as "unbelievable''.

Mayor Peter Taylor said: ''It's a real disaster scene where I'm standing at the moment in Russell Street, Toowoomba. There's furniture and furnishings and it's just blown shops away.
''We have a railway line about 60 or 70m (230ft) suspended in mid-air and two cars that are virtually unrecognisable that have floated and smashed into the rail.''
Queensland Deputy Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said there had been many calls from people needing to be rescued.
"We've had multiple calls requesting urgent assistance from people caught in vehicles, caught on the street, caught in flood ways," he said.
"It is an evolving and obviously quite desperate situation for them," he said. "There has been no warning of this event."
This is some of the most violent and frightening flooding that Queensland has yet witnessed, says the BBC's correspondent in Australia, Nick Bryant.
Heavy rain has lashed the region for the last 36 hours, with 16cm (6in) falling in just one hour. Most of the rainwater hit an already saturated catchment.
The floods in Queensland have washed away roads and railways, destroyed crops and brought the coal industry to a near standstill.
The state premier has estimated that the price of rebuilding homes, businesses and infrastructure, coupled with economic losses, could exceed A$5bn (£3bn).