Disaster plan for Queensland

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33445, 29 January 1974, Page 1

Disaster plan for Queensland

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

BRISBANE, January 28.

Queensland state Government leaders today held a meeting to devise a disaster plan for the state’s worst floods this century.

The State Premier (Mr Johannes BjelkePetersen) called in Cabinet Ministers and senior Government officials as flood waters continued to rise and Queensland prepared for yet more heavy rain.

The city’s death toll now stands at five with more than 8000 people homeless throughout the state. More than 25in of rain have fallen in southeastern Queensland in the last 72 hours. The long-term disaster plan is expected to include the immediate setting up of emergency offices in flooded areas throughout the state. This afternoon flood waters lapped through one-third of Brisbane, cutting off all but one main road into the city centre from the southern and eastern suburbs. The Weather Bureau said that the Brisbane River was expected soon to reach a height of 22ft—the highest since 1893—when the river rose to 31ft twice in 22 days and left a gunboat of the Queensland Colonial Navy stranded in the Botanic Gardens outside Parliament House. SANDBAG DYKES The Army has been called in to build sandbag dykes around the central telephone

exchange and a bank headquarters with millions of dollars in notes in the vaults. In some older riverside suburbs only the high-pitched corrugated iron roofs of typically Queensland houses remain above water, looking like floating pyramids. Rescue work is being hampered by floating debris ranging from thick mats of water hyacinth and uprooted trees to the carcases of dead animals and runaway small craft.

The 24,000-ton Greek liner Patris, which broke away from its moorings yesterday, is aground on a mudbank at.

the river mouth. There are no passengers aboard.

AIRPORT OPEN Brisbane police said today that many of the city’s essential services were breaking down. There was a series of communication and power cuts throughout the day. Brisbane Airport, closed for the last three days, opened this morning to traffic but all train and bus services ceased. Throughout the rest of the state an airlift of food got under way this morning to townships cut off by the flood waters. Altogether more than a quarter of a million square miles are under water. Damage in Brisbane has already been estimated at more than s2om and the authorities fear that this figure might double if rain continued.