News24 reports that emergency sirens blared across Australia’s third-largest city, Brisbane, today as flood waters that have torn a deadly path across the region poured into an empty downtown, swamping neighbourhoods in what may be Brisbane’s worst flooding in 100 years.
The surging waters reached the tops of traffic lights in some places, and the city’s mayor said at least 20 000 homes could be inundated.
Flood waters pour into empty Brisbane
At least 22 people have died and more than 50 are missing elsewhere in Australia’s north-eastern state of Queensland since drenching rains that began in November sent swollen rivers spilling over their banks, inundating an area larger than France and Germany combined.
The devastating floods could slice more than 10 billion Australian Dollars ($10 billion) off Australia’s GDP and affect the economy worse than Hurricane Katrina hurt the United States, economists said.
Experts said the floods, which have turned most of the mining and Great Barrier Reef state of Queensland into a disaster zone, could cut growth by one percentage point in the near term, including lost exports and infrastructure damage. The state last suffered crippling floods back in 1974, when the Brisbane River broke its banks causing widespread flooding and the loss of 14 lives. – Also info from Sapa/AFP