Re: Queensland, AU: 16 people killed and over 43 missing as floods inundate Brisbane
Re: Queensland, AU: 16 people killed and over 43 missing as floods inundate Brisbane
Police have released a list of 18 confirmed dead and 14 missing in Queensland's flood disaster, giving details of how they died or when some were last seen.
State Premier Anna Bligh yesterday confirmed a further death that took the official toll to 18, after the body of a woman and later a middle-aged man was recovered in the Lockyer Valley.
Record floods were predicted in several rural Australian communities today as rivers swollen from upstream rain flowed heavily into southern states.
The focus of today's concerns however has switched to Victoria in southern Australia where officials expected floodwaters to drown out highways and isolate dozens of towns in northeastern parts of the state.
The town of Horsham could face a major flood during today's expected peak of the Wimmera River. Up to 500 properties in the town of about 14,000 people could be affected.
With a massive search still under way in the Lockyer Valley, the families of those missing agreed to release the names and photographs of their loved ones in an attempt to help find them.
They include Regina Vanderwerf, 82 - who was last seen inside a Grantham house but was unable to reach other family members who escaped the deluge - and Dawn Margaret Radke, 56, who went missing along with her toddler granddaughter Jessica Keep, when a torrent of water smashed through a brick wall of their Grantham home and carried them away. Another family member sheltering in the house, Pauline Magner, 65, was yesterday confirmed dead, but four others survived.
Police have dealt with 200 missing persons reports since floodwater rushed down from Toowoomba and through the Lockyer Valley on Monday, but that number has been revised down to 14, with grave fears held for all of them.
All of those missing and many of the dead are from the valley, which bore the brunt of the flooding, described by some survivors as like an "inland tsunami".
Six of those known to have died came from Grantham, with the search now focused downstream of the town, 100 kilometres west of Brisbane.
The only victim police had previously identified was Donna Rice, 43, who died along with her son Jordan, 13, after being trapped inside their car in the Toowoomba CBD on Monday.
Police yesterday named six more victims known to be dead including mother Llync-Chiann Clarke, 31.
Ms Clarke, her 12-year-old son Garry Maguire and five-year-old daughter Jocelyn Maguire perished when they became trapped inside a rural fire brigade truck that was flooded while on Gatton-Heildon Road, in Gatton.
Other victims named yesterday were: Robert John Kelly, 30, whose body was found on Wednesday in a grey Toyota LandCruiser that was upside down in Myall Creek, Dalby; Van Toan Giang, 24, who disappeared under water while trying to check his family's property in Durack; Jean Gurr, 88, who was trapped inside her home when the wall of water hit and was later found dead inside; and Selwyn Schefe, 52, whose body was found after he was swept away from the tray of a ute as his house collapsed. Mr Schefe's daughter Katie, 6, is still missing, but his wife, Catherine, 50, survived after grabbing hold of a tree.
Three of the official dead are yet to be formally identified, including a man and a woman who were found in separate locations in Grantham. Police are also investigating two reports of women swept away in Toowoomba and Grantham.
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/world-news/4547188/Death-toll-climbs-as-floods-spread
