THE QUEENSLAND FLOODS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2468, 23 February 1893, Page 3

THE QUEENSLAND FLOODS.

We clip the following from the Otago Daily Times : 15RISBANE MERCHANTS LOSE TWO MILLION POUNDS. Though tho aggregate loss to the countrymust be for somo time a matter of speculation, the ascertained destruction is already looming into terrible proportions. Thus the losses of Brisbane merchants and business men alone are estimated at £2,000,000, and, though this reads like ex ggeration, some particulars are given that seem to make it more than a possibility. If there was bitter loss and want a week ago, there is greater need to-day. Besides food for the destitute, we are told that money is urgently wanted to repair the wrecked houses of the homeless ones, to supply the farmers with seed (maize chiefly), and to give a fresh start to the multitude of little business people who—many of them women—cannot otherwise subsist, and lived in numbers in the poorer and flooded suburbs. In South Brisbane alone, out of a population of 20,000, it is estimated that from 7000 to 8000 people have either had their homes destroyed or rendered untenantable. This statement appears in the Argus of 13th iust., and now we are told by cable of the present, and perhaps greater, flood that large numbers of people who had made their homes habitable have again been driven out, and there will be much added distress in this direction. Railway communication with Brisbane was stopped last Friday, and we are since told by wire that the line between Brisbane and Toowoomba has been destroyed. Such an event would be the greatest calamity of all, for it is the greatest and most costly engineering work in Australia, ascending, as it does, in- its course a mouni ain 2500 ft in height. But it cannot be true, though it is easy to imagine that a terrible amount of damage has been wrought. THE VICTORIA BRIDGE. It is thought that as the foundations of the piers of the Victoria Bridge are sunk to a great depth in the river bed, they may be uninjured, so that all that will be necessary will be to rebuild above the river bottom. It is stated that a temporary bridge can be erected within three or four months at a cost of £4OOO. Such a bridge could not of course, carry the tramways, and all traffic would, no doubt, require to go at a foot pace. Still it would also serve as scaffolding for the building of the permanent structure, or rather what the Brisbane folks hope will prove so. During the Wedneuday and Thursday following upon the destruction of the bridge 1000 ferry tickets were sold at Gd per dozen and the proceeds handed to the relief fund. This will give some idea of the more than inconvenience caused by this loss alone. Residents who saw the disaster tell me (says the Argus correspondent) that the destruction of Victoria bridge furnished a magniiicent spectale. All through Saturday night the river had been piling houses and sheds of all kinds against the bridge, crushing and grinding them to pieces. It is feared that there may have been living persons in some of the houses, but no one dare venture to go the spot to ascertain exactly the position of matters. At last, after the bridge had stood the strain during Sunday, at 4 o'clock on Monday morning the northern half of the structure gave way, and disappeared into the river. One after another of the big lattice girders and solid piers were swept away, carrying with them the telegraph wires which crossed the bridge, and thus cutting off communication with tho southern colonies.