Four die in Aussie floods
Helicopters moving people to safety as river hits peak
BRISBANE: Helicopters plucked dozens of stranded Australians to safety in dramatic rooftop rescues as severe floods swept the northeast, killing four people and inundating thousands of homes.
The body of one man carried away by rising waters was found in the Queensland state capital Brisbane and another further north at Gympie, following the earlier discovery of an elderly man who died near the city of Bundaberg.
A pregnant woman and her threeyear-old son were hospitalised after a large tree fell on them as they were walking yesterday morning in Brisbane.
They were reported to have head injuries, with the child in critical condition.
Queensland Premier Campbell Newman announced that an acute emergency was unfolding in Bundaberg, home to about 50,000 people some 360km north of Brisbane, with people scrambling to get out as the river hit a record peak.
One family zipped their infant son into a waterproof bag to be winched to safety by helicopter as floods surrounded their car on Sunday at Biloela, west of Bundaberg.
Newman said authorities were now in “uncharted territory“, with debris-laden floodwaters roaring through the town at such speeds that evacuations by water were no longer viable.
There were fears homes could be ripped from foundations.
More than 2,000 houses had flooded and “many thousands” of people were affected, he said, with a “significant number” of people soon to be trapped.
Some 60 patients at a hospital were being shifted to upper floors.
Fourteen helicopters including two army Black Hawks would fly rescue missions until nightfall and Newman said the government was scrambling to find extra aircraft.
Pounding surf whipped up huge ocean froth on the Gold and Sunshine Coast regions, with foam up to one metre deep in some areas of the shore.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the “wild weather had broken a lot of hearts“, with some Queensland residents experiencing their third flood in two years, including the devastating 2011 inundation which killed 35 people. — AFP