Australian floods:

Heavy rains bring more misery

AUSTRALIA: Heavy rains brought more misery to Australia’s flooded northeast Thursday as besieged Rockhampton cut supplies to “irresponsible” residents who refused to leave their water-bound homes.

Torrential downpours could cause flash-flooding and worsen existing floods, the weather bureau said, as water levels slowly started to recede in regional centre Rockhampton, a town virtually surrounded by a brown inland sea.

Australia’s coal-mining and farming belt near Brisbane is suffering “biblical” floods across an area the size of Texas, after La Nina, a weather system, deluged Queensland state with its wettest year on record.

Waters peaked in Rockhampton at lower levels than feared and slowly started to recede, while downstream other communities braced for the floods.

The disaster, described as the state’s worst, has inundated or cut off 40 towns. Entire towns have been airlifted as the murky tide gushes across Queensland, destroying crops, roads and bridges and sweeping 10 people to their deaths, along with thousands of animals. The crisis has cost about one billion dollars (one billion US) in production at Queensland’s coking coal mines, which account for half the world’s supply, putting upward inflationary pressure on the shaky global economy.

Meanwhile thousands of people have evacuated or are trying to salvage homes and belongings, while dealing with the threat of poisonous snakes, crocodiles and disease-carrying mosquitoes as they negotiate the sludge and rain. Rockhampton, Thursday, AFP