Australian flood victims return to muddy homes

The Jakarta Post -

Evacuated victims began returning to homes caked in sludge on Friday as Australia's flood crisis eased, though one sandbagged town watched nervously as a swollen river level crept higher and forecasters warned of more rain.

Officials said they were moving from the emergency phase into cleanup as flood water levels stabilized in the hard-hit coastal city of Rockhampton and dropped further in towns further inland.

Queensland state has been in the grip of Australia's worst flooding in some 50 years since drenching tropical rains fell for days starting just before Christmas. At its worst, an area the size of France and Germany combined was covered with water, some 40 townships were inundated and nearly 4,000 people evacuated.

Police say 10 people have died in swollen rivers or floodwaters in Queensland since late November.

The flooding shut some 40 coal mines in the state, pushing up global prices, and has hurt wheat, mango, sugarcane and other crops. Road and rail links have been washed away in many places, and officials warn it could be months before they are restored so industry and other activity can return to normal.

Some of the 150 people of Condamine went home in a convoy on Thursday for the first time since everyone in the small cattle-ranch supply town 190 miles (300 kilometers) west of Brisbane, the state capital, was evacuated on Dec. 30 to escape rising floodwaters.

They found the waters gone, but that 42 of the town's 60 houses had been inundated by the flood.

"It's just flattened everything," said pub owner Shane Hickey. "All the grass is mud, all the plants have been torn out of the ground, the trees have gone over and are just covered in silt and mud."

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