Transcript

SCOTT BEVAN, PRESENTER: Queensland is experiencing one of its darkest hours. With the flood crisis taking another deadly turn. The death toll from the wall of water that tore through Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley stood at six this morning, but that has steadily climbed during the day.

Scores of people are still missing, and a major search and rescue operation is underway. And each hour brings more developments.

Tonight the floods have reached the capital, Brisbane. Residents are fleeing low-lying suburbs and a major evacuation centre has been set up. Well shortly we'll cross live to the Queensland deputy police commissioner, Ian Stewart for the latest.

But first this report from Peter McCutcheon.

PETER MCCUTCHEON, REPORTER: The morning mist reveals the first images of a town reduced to a sodden ruin. The water at Grantham is receding but authorities are only just beginning to understand the extent of the devastation.

ANNA BLIGH, QLD PREMIER: We have a grim and desperate situation in the Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley region.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: No one really knows how many people died in the so-called inland tsunami. TV helicopters yesterday discovered a family of three trapped in a car engulfed by a raging inland sea. And scores of people remain missing. Rescue workers are having trouble even getting here, let alone searching the more remote properties of Queensland's Lockyer Valley.

ANNA BLIGH: We are finding it very difficult to get these teams out and deployed because of the weather and the constantly changing water system. They are however as I said, ready to deploy and into that region as soon as we see any of these weather lift.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: It was a freak of nature that triggered such an extraordinary event. Although lasting only minutes, the flash flood at Toowoomba was captured on mobile recorders by those people lucky enough not to be directly in the path of the deluge.

TOOWOOMBA RESIDENT: Dead set, it was like a wall of water and I've got a Falcon ute and it just picked it up, there was about seven or eight cars there, and just smashed them together. And the last I saw of it was going down the creek bobbing up and down.

JIM DAVIDSON, WEATHER BUREAU: The rainstorm itself wasn't that exceptional in terms of appearance on radar and satellite, but it did cover a fairly large area.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Regional director of the weather bureau, Jim Davidson, explains that up to 150mm of rain may have fallen in 30 minutes, which is rare but not unprecedented.

WITNESS: Oh my goodness.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: What made this downpour so devastating was the fact that the ground was already waterlogged and the angle at which the storm hit the Great Dividing Range.

JIM DAVIDSON: Having Toowoomba situated where it is, Lockyer Creek immediately underneath the range, it all came together.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Emergency services did reach the township of Grantham later today and began evacuating those who spent a night literally hanging on for their lives.

KEL WOODS, GRANTHAM RESIDENT: Stood on the roof of that building behind me and watched, watched the cars float down the road, watched the houses float down the road, watched just the massive amounts of debris.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: Up on the range the situation is more stable. Although Toowoomba is a mess, the city isn't expecting any more fatalities. But many people are still traumatised.

TOOWOOMBA RESIDENT: I'm still shaking now.

OFFICIAL: If you look at the films, if you look at what happened, we could have lost a lot more people and yeah the bravery of individual people, the bravery of our emergency services people that really saved many, many people through this major event.

ANNA BLIGH: There's no doubt that we are now in I think a very different sort of disaster. And what it is doing is testing our emergency response and it will test us as communities and as people.

PETER MCCUTCHEON: This is a natural disaster with no template. With expert projections changing every couple of hours, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh held a media conference late last night, and three further updates today. A politician clearly moved by the enomity of the tradgedy and the challenges ahead.

ANNA BLIGH: This weather I think is um, it might be breaking our hearts at the moment but it will not break our will. What we have out there on the front line are some of the best-trained people in Australia. And they are going to protect these communities and we are going to make sure that we keep everybody that we can as safe as humanly possible.

SCOTT BEVAN: Peter McCutcheon with that report.