Highlights
Deadly floodwaters that have cut a swath across northeast Australia seeped onto the streets of the nation’s third-largest city Wednesday, forcing people to flee both suburbs and skyscrapers.
City Mayor Campbell Newman said almost 20,000 homes in low-lying areas of the city of about 2 million were expected to be swamped by the time the river system it is built on reaches its expected peak Thursday. The figures were constantly being revised as the threat became clearer — and it was getting consistently worse.
Meanwhile, Queensland state Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said the confirmed death toll from Monday’s flash flooding west of Brisbane — described as “an inland instant tsunami” — remained at 10, with the number of people missing dropping to 67 from more than 90.
Queensland has been swamped by floods for weeks that covered land the size of France and Germany combined. Entire towns have been swamped, more than 200,000 people affected, and the vital coal industry, ranching and farming have virtually shut down.
Bligh said last week the cost of the floods could be as high as $5 billion, the latest figure available.
The source article Floods enter Brisbane, 20,000 homes in danger was published January 11, 2010 by The Associated Press via Yahoo! News .
