‘Grave concerns’ for 14-year-old girl missing in Queensland flood waters as search continues
Rescuers are still searching for a 14-year-old girl reported missing in Queensland flood waters, as the state emergency service begins the lengthy process of assessing hundreds of homes and businesses for damage.
Flood waters on the Fraser Coast town of Maryborough, 250km north of Brisbane, peaked at 9.96 metres on Sunday night – below the level of the devastating 2013 flood.
The city centre was protected by a levee until 2am when an underground stormwater mechanism failed, allowing flood waters to surge up through the drains.
Local police superintendent Michael Sawrey said it would take several days for the waters to fully recede.
More than 1,000 people have been isolated by the floods, which followed ex-tropical cyclone Seth dumping 600mm of rain on the Wide BayBurnett region in two days.
Sawrey said the number of people isolated gave an indication of the number of homes affected, but the exact number of those damaged would not be known until emergency services move in and conduct rapid assessments of homes and businesses.
“The clean-up will take a while, as you would have seen,” he said. “The water was slow rising, and with that, it’s normally slow getting away. But … you can see from last night even how much water has gone down. So that’s a positive thing for Maryborough.”
Sawrey said water police and police divers were continuing to look for the girl, who was swept away in flood waters at Booubyjan, near Gympie, on Saturday.
“Unfortunately at this stage, we haven’t found the missing 14-year-old girl and we have grave concerns for her, but we’re putting in whatever efforts we can to try to locate her,” he told reporters on Monday.
“It is an extremely difficult area surrounded by water, which has created hindrances to our search effort.”
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, speaking in Canberra, said his thoughts were with the 14-year-old girl’s family.
“I have a daughter who’s 14 years old, so I can understand the terrible, terrible time that family must be going through at the moment,” he said.
He also gave his condolences to the family of a 22-year-old man, who was found dead in flood waters near Gympie on Saturday.
A father and daughter who survived two nights clinging to a tree near Gympie were airlifted to safety by a rescue helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
“The father explained to the crew that his car had been caught between two sections of floodwaters on Friday night and water began filling the car,” RACQ LifeFlight said in a statement late on Sunday night.
“He and his primary school-aged daughter climbed on to the roof of the vehicle but were swept into the water in the darkness.”
The father then swam to his car, grabbed a rope, and used it to tie himself and his daughter to the tree. When the waters subsided on Sunday they climbed the 10 metres down to the ground and raised the alarm at a nearby homestead.
State disaster coordinator Steve Gollschewski said the father and daughter’s rescue gave crews hope for the missing teenager.
“While we have very grave concerns, we are hopeful … we saw yesterday a pair of people come out after an extended period in a tree,” he said.
“They were able to be supported when they came out after what was probably a pretty terrible experience for them, but they are safe.”
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No others have been reported missing as a result of the flood.
The Bureau of Meteorology said the flooding would move farther upstream as waters washed out toward Fraser Island. Falls of between 50 to 700mm were recorded north and north-west of Gympie over the weekend.
Financial support via the disaster recovery payment will be available for people in the Bundaberg, Gympie and Fraser Coast regions from Tuesday.