Asia-Pacific

Australia floods recede to reveal extent of damage

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-01-14 15:58

BRISBANE, Australia - Parts of Australia's third-largest city reopened Friday as deadly floodwaters that had swamped entire neighborhoods receded, revealing streets and thousands of homes covered in a thick layer of putrid sludge.

The mud covered friends of Andrew Taylor (2nd R), pose around a destroyed piano, as they help his family clean their house after flood waters receded in the Brisbane suburb of Westend January 14, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Garbage trucks moved through Brisbane's muddy streets and some residents dragged ruined furniture out of their homes as the massive cleanup began following one of Australia's worst natural disasters.

In towns upstream of Brisbane, soldiers picked their way through debris looking for more victims. Weeks of flooding across Australia's northeast have caused 25 deaths, and 55 people were still missing.

"There is a lot of heartache and grief as people start to see for the first time what has happened to their homes and their streets," Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said. "In some cases, we have street after street after street where every home has been inundated to the roof level."

The muddy waters swamped 30,000 homes and businesses in Brisbane. One man drowned Thursday when he was sucked into a storm drain as he tried to check on his father's home in an inundated Brisbane neighborhood. Officials expected to find more bodies farther upstream as they finally got access to hamlets struck by flash flooding on Monday.

Most of the people tallied as missing are from around Toowoomba, a city west of Brisbane in the Lockyer Valley where a sudden downpour caused a flash flood likened to an inland tsunami.

Dramatic video captured the power of the roaring water: A yacht ripped from its moorings rocketed down the river and suddenly sank after hitting a submerged object. Two men on board were thrown into the water and rescued by people on a small aluminum boat nearby.

Bligh warned the cleanup task would be of "postwar proportions." Water was still high in some areas Friday, but had pulled back dramatically in others to reveal mountains of muddy wreckage. Officials asked the Australian Defence Force for a minesweeper to search the mouth of the river for sunken debris.

More than 60,000 homes were still without power across Queensland, and the military was delivering food, clothes and other supplies to areas still cut off by the waters.

Health officials warned people to throw out anything that had touched the contaminated waters. Throughout Brisbane, a sickening odor of spoiled food and the river's muck wafted through the air.