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The northeastern Australian state of Queensland remains burdened by deadly floods that have affected hundreds of thousands of residents in the past several days.
A tropical cyclone and heavy rainfall around Christmas inundated numerous river basins, affecting 200,000 people across an area larger than Texas or France, according to the Associated Press. Four people have been killed in the deluge, and six others in the state have succumbed to floods since late November, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. The newspaper reports that 22 central Queensland towns are underwater or cut off by the floodwaters.
The Earth-observing Terra satellite, managed by NASA for an international consortium, photographed the swollen Fitzroy, Mackenzie, Comet and Dawson rivers in Queensland on December 31. At Rockhampton, a city on the Fitzroy with more than 60,000 residents, military aircraft are bringing in supplies after road closures cut the city off from the rest of the state. And floodwaters are still rising at Rockhampton; the Australian Bureau of Meteorology expects the river's height will peak at up to 9.4 meters there on January 5.
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4 Comments
Add CommentI was eventually able to find a before and after satellite image comparison. The thick blue rivers you see in the image above were either barely visible or completely invisible. I'm curious as to how water levels contrasted with normal levels compares to the Pakistani and California floods.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe flood level in one town in Queensland had flood level of 14 metres above normal .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAssuming the image is representative of present flooding, which it appears to be based on more recent images, on a geographical scale it doesn't amount to much. Your lawn would look a lot wetter after an ordinary shower. So who built the cities in a flood plain, then?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was originally from the town in Queensland that had a 14m level. It was the highest on record; with the official records dating back to 1900. Most of the older houses "traditional houses" were built on raised posts or on on natural or artificial high ground with floods in mind. The new houses being built in Queensland, more bungalow and cheaply made with recent short-sited local government permission were built in bungalow style just above ground level. This probably was also a result of short term human memory factors as the last 30 years has been mostly dry (last major flood was in 1983 - it was significantly lower than the current). Therefore most new houses have been devastated by the innundation, however some older houses were also affected as the levels were unprecedented. Incidentally, the house I grew up in, 40+ years old and built on artificially raised ground was spared by the floodwaters, but most likely would have been flooded if the waters were 1m higher. Therefore it pays to know you're long term (century+) local environmental history before building new houses!
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