Floods, mass power cuts as wild weather bashes eastern Australia

QUEENSLAND - Gusts and torrential rain have blacked out more than a quarter of a million properties and swamped parts of Australia’s east coast, said officials on March 9, with one driver confirmed dead and a dozen troops injured in the wild weather.

After days hovering off the coast as a Category 2 tropical cyclone and battering a 400km stretch of coastline, Tropical Cyclone Alfred weakened into a tropical depression before making landfall on the evening of March 8.

But as the remnants of the cyclone moved inland, hundreds of thousands of people remained without power on March 9, and video images showed knee-high water pouring through roads in some of the worst-hit areas of south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales.

A total of 23cm of rain descended on the Queensland resort of Hervey Bay in just a few hours, flooding homes and forcing emergency rescues in rapid waters, the state’s Premier, Mr David Crisafulli, told a news conference.

The weather system “continues to pack a punch” as it moves inland, Mr Crisafulli said, adding that more than 1,000 schools shuttered across the state would gradually start reopening on March 10.

Utility companies said about 268,000 homes and businesses in south-east Queensland, and another 12,500 in north-east New South Wales, were still without power on the afternoon of March 9.

Queensland’s Essential Energy said in a statement: “Customers need to be prepared to be without power for several days.

“The biggest challenges to getting power back on will be rising flood waters and swollen creek beds, fallen vegetation and mud slides impacting access roads.”

About 14,600 people are under emergency warnings related to the weather system in New South Wales, the state’s emergency services said.

Its deputy commissioner, Mr Damien Johnson, said: “In the last 24 hours, 17 incidents have occurred as a result of people driving into flood waters.

“Not only is it a danger to yourself and your family, it is also dangerous as well for the volunteers, the emergency services workers that need to rescue you.”

A 61-year-old man’s body was found on March 8, a day after his four-wheel-drive pickup truck was swept off a bridge into a river in northern New South Wales.

He had escaped from the pickup and tried in vain to cling to a tree branch in the river before disappearing into the rapid waters, police said.

Perilous weather

In a separate incident on March 8, police said 13 soldiers were injured and taken to hospital when two army trucks rolled over during a deployment to clear roads near the flood-prone New South Wales city of Lismore.

Twelve soldiers were still in hospital on March 9, two of them in a serious condition, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told a news conference.

“We wish a speedy recovery for all of those young soldiers,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned that the weather was still perilous.

“The situation in Queensland and northern New South Wales remains very serious due to flash flooding and heavy winds,” he said.

“Heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts and coastal surf impacts are expected to continue over coming days.”

Severe weather warnings were in force for a broad area of south-east Queensland, the government’s Bureau of Meteorology said.

“Heavy rainfall and significant flooding continue to impact south-east Queensland and north-east New South Wales, driven by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred,” it said in an update.

“The ex-Tropical Cyclone is gradually moving inland, but continues to draw significant tropical moisture into the region.” AFP