Floods wreak havoc on Queensland infrastructure, threaten Aussie economy
Queensland is Australia’s largest coal exporter and accounts for about 20 percent of the nation’s A$1.28 trillion economy; the state’s worst in fifty years have forced the evacuation of 4,000 people and affected about a million square kilometers, or an area the size of France and Germany combined; it may cost more than A$5 billion to repair the damage the deluge has caused; Australia had its third-wettest year on record during 2010; the rain has destroyed cotton crops, halted coal deliveries, shut mines, and prompted producers including BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group to declare force majeure, a legal clause allowing them to miss contracted deliveries
Residents of St George, a town in Australia’s flood-ravaged Queensland state, are watching rising river levels as the water that has caused more than A$5 billion ($5 billion) of damage moves south and more rain is forecast.
Barnaby Joyce, leader of the opposition Nationals party in Australia’s Senate, has been moving livestock to higher ground at neighbors’ farms and pouring sand into bags to help build levees to protect the town. The Bolonne River is at 13 meters (43 feet) and may continue rising to peak just below 14 meters, causing “major” floods, the Bureau of Meteorology said over the weekend.
“Now we sit back and hope and pray that the river does not get to 14 meters,” Joyce said by telephone from his house that sits above the flood line. “We are just hoping it doesn’t happen. If it does we have to manage it. I’ll stay here until I’m told I can’t.”
Bloomberg reports that the floods, the state’s worst in fifty years, have forced the evacuation of 4,000 people and affected about a million square kilometers, or an area the size of France and Germany. It may cost more than A$5 billion to repair the damage the deluge has caused, Queensland Premier Anna Blighhas said.
St George, a town of 3,500 people about 500 kilometers (310 miles) inland from the state capital, Brisbane, has run out of sandbags, Joyce said. A Hercules cargo plane was scheduled to drop extra sandbags and fuel to the town, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported. More rain is forecast over the state’s southeast region today, the Bureau said.
The southeastern state of Victoria has sent twenty-three State Emergency Service volunteers and New Zealand is sending sixteen skilled flood response workers, Emergency Management Queensland said Friday.
Queensland is Australia’s largest coal exporter and accounts for about 20 percent of the nation’s A$1.28 trillion economy. Record rainfall has closed mines and spoiled crops and may have a “significant impact” on the nation’s economy as exports are interrupted, according to Donald McGauchie, a Reserve Bank of Australia board member.
Ten people have died in flood waters in the past few weeks and an estimated 200,000 people in the state have been affected, according to Queensland Police.
The floods closed the airport at Rockhampton, a coastal town of 75,000 residents about 500 kilometers north of Brisbane. Train links were cut off and roads to the south and west of the city were closed. The
