Driving rain brings new flood woes to Australia

BRISBANE, Australia – Floodwaters from a swollen river poured into businesses in yet another northeastern Australian community Monday, as relentless rains brought more misery to a region battling its worst flooding in decades.

Muddy waters flowed through the main street in the city of Gympie, the latest of around 40 communities in Queensland state to be drenched by overflowing rivers in recent weeks. Gympie residents were frantically sandbagging buildings, but around a dozen businesses were inundated by Monday morning and dozens more were at risk as the Mary River burst its banks and kept rising.

The latest flooding was not as bad as in recent weeks, when entire towns were submerged beneath an inland sea the size of France and Germany combined. But it was a sign that the ground has little capacity left to soak up any more moisture, so any new rain is likely to make matters worse, officials said.

Some areas of Queensland have had more than 13 inches (343 millimeters) of rain in the past 24 hours, the Bureau of Meteorology said Monday.

Up to 80 businesses and homes were at risk of being inundated in Gympie, a city of around 16,000, said Acting Regional Mayor Tony Perrett.

Police were planning to knock on doors in high-risk areas, warning residents they may need to flee, Perrett said.

"If it looks like (it's) getting to be a life-threatening situation somewhere, we'll certainly get people out," he told Australian Broadcasting Corp.

The water was already 5 feet (1.5 meters) deep at Gympie's Royal Hotel on Monday morning.

"You want to cry," the hotel's assistant manager Jess Philpot said. "It's going to go up to the roof."

Ten people have died since late November and about 200,000 have been affected by the floods. Roads and rail lines have been cut, Queensland's big-exporting coal mine industry has virtually shut down, and cattle ranching and farming across a large part of the state are at a standstill.

Residents of some of the affected communities have returned home and begun mopping up sludge left behind by the floods, while others — including in the city of Rockhampton, home to 75,000 people — are still waiting for floodwaters to recede to start the cleanup.

Water levels remained stubbornly high in Rockhampton on Monday, and the mayor warned weary residents evacuated two weeks ago that they face another week of waiting before it will be safe for them to return home. Muddy water is still sloshing through 400 houses and 150 businesses in the city.