BRISBANE: Grandmother Irene Comstive shakes with sorrow as she surveys the damage to her Brisbane home following the city's worst flooding in almost four decades.
"Oh no, it's worse than I thought," the 83-year-old says as she looks at a sitting-room carpet turned from white to black by the surging waters which left the antique sofas, tables and chairs of her Rosalie home strewn about.
"I thought it would be how I left it. It's not insured."
Elsewhere, amid an almost unbearable stench, Craig Yeoman was washing away the thick mud that has caked his home since massive floods poured through the Australian city of Brisbane on Thursday.
"We want to get the mud out before it dries," he explains from his home in Paddington, a suburb badly impacted when the Brisbane River broke its banks and inundated 30,000 homes on Wednesday and Thursday.
"We'll get ours (house) done then move on to help the neighbours."
Despite the disaster, Yeoman said he was relieved he still had a house after the deluge. "Plenty of people haven't," he said.
As the waters receded Friday, Brisbane residents began shovelling mud from homes, footpaths and roads as the city -- Australia's third largest -- struggled to come back to life after it was turned into a briny lake.
Homeowners rushed to remove stinking carpet and toss out furniture ruined by the toxic, brown water which left behind a three-inch coating of mud in many homes.
"I've lost a lot, that's for sure," said Michael Zalewski, who lived in the shattered suburb of New Farm. "I've never seen anything like it."
Business operators dumped ruined stock and garbage on footpaths as they attempted to clean up while they waited for power to be restored after it was cut during the disaster that left the city looking like a "war zone".
"It's not pretty in there," one cafe owner told Sky News, saying that the water level inside her premises had been the same inside and out at the height of the floods, despite sandbagging, as water came in through doors and up through drains. "It's just you begin again."
But she added: "We're lucky. We haven't lost our homes, we haven't lost loved ones."
Parts of Brisbane remain isolated by the floodwaters, forcing the military to bring in food and supplies overnight, while many traffic lights were still out.
The flash floods swept more than a dozen people to their deaths
As defence and emergency personnel combed small settlements west of Brisbane worst hit by the flash floods for more bodies, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the capital was slowing reviving.
"The (Brisbane) CBD (central business district) is largely operational but there are still 10 buildings without power and they will be one of the priorities today," she told reporters Friday.
Bligh said a mine-sweeper had been requested from the military to search Moreton Bay, which the Brisbane River feeds into, for debris including boats and large parts of buildings, which were washed down the river.
But the emphasis was on homeowners returning to survey the heart-breaking damage to those houses inundated to their rooftops by the waters.
"Some of these houses will have to be demolished," Bligh said.
Comments
Comments are closed.