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Up to 200,000 people are estimated to have been hit by the fast-flowing waters which have left entire rural towns under water and cut off many more over a vast area the size of France and Germany combined.
But in a rare glimmer of good news, the bureau of meteorology in Queensland early Monday cancelled a severe thunderstorm warning, saying the immediate threat had passed.
However, state assistant police commissioner Alistair Dawson has warned the emergency could drag on for another month and cautioned that major difficulties still lay ahead.
“It’s hard to make the call that the worst is behind us,” Dawson said on Sunday.
“Parts of the state are still in response mode while others are in recovery… I think we’re in the middle of the event,” he said.
The floods, which are wreaking untold billions of dollars in damage to crops and Australia’s key mining industry, claimed their first victim Sunday when the body of a missing woman was recovered.
There are fears for another man missing after his fishing boat was swamped Saturday afternoon near Gladstone, at the centre of the floods, and witnesses reported seeing a second man swept away in the coastal town of Rockhampton.
The 41-year-old woman victim was swept from her car as she tried to cross a swamped causeway in the Gulf of Carpentaria region.
Police managed to save three children and another adult from the car but the woman disappeared before they could reach her.
“These waters are exceptionally fast, they’re not to be trifled with and they’re not to be taken lightly,” Dawson said.-AFP
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