17 Jan 2011

Queensland flood toll rises to 18

5:56 am on 17 January 2011

The death toll from the Queensland floods has risen to 18 after the discovery of two more bodies in the Lockyer Valley, west of Brisbane, on Sunday.

Queensland police have released the names of some of those still missing in the hope it may help locate some of them.

The 14 still unaccounted for are all from Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, where a wall of water destroyed homes and buildings on Monday.

Police fear all may have been swept to their deaths, the ABC reports.

On Sunday, the bodies of a woman and a man were found in the Lockyer Valley.

The woman's body was found after the third search of a debris-filled house in the town of Grantham.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh told a media briefing that the difficulty in finding this woman's body demonstrated why the search was taking so long.

She says 500,000 square kilometres are flooded in Queensland, and more than two million people are living in disaster-declared areas.

The state's coroner says it could take months to recover and identify the bodies of those who died.

Michael Barnes says it is possible that some of those who are missing may never be found.

Among those missing is a six-year-old girl from Murphys Creek who disappeared after her home was swept away on Monday.

A one-year-old from Grantham and the child's grandmother Dawn Radke are feared to have been carried away in floodwaters.

A 72-year-old woman was last seen near her Postman's Ridge house which was swept away, and an 82-year-old Grantham woman is also among the missing.

Floods have surged through southern Queensland since December.

Victoria

The towns of Echuca and Horsham in the Australian state of Victoria are set to be hit by their worst floods in 100 years.

The swollen Campaspe River could flood up to 100 Echuca properties when it peaks overnight.

Hundreds of businesses and homes could be flooded in Horsham when the Wimmera River near the town peaks on Monday afternoon.

Around Victoria, more than 3500 people have fled their homes, 43 towns have been affected and more than 1400 properties have been flooded.

Police say 50 people have been rescued in the past week, 30 of whom were in stranded vehicles.

Echuca's mayor Neil Pankhurst said the town's levee bank had been designed to withstand a one in 100-year flood, which is dangerously close to what is expected late on Sunday night.

State Emergency Service operations director Trevor White said the flood event was one of Victoria's biggest since records began.

New South Wales

In New South Wales, nearly 6000 people are cut off by floodwaters in the Clarence Valley but have been told they may be able to come in and out of the area as waters recede.

The State Emergency Service says several hundred residents in the far west of the state could be cut off for up to two months.

South Australia

Floodwaters were starting to recede in South Australia, where heavy rain had seen water up to a metre deep in parts of Frances, near the Victorian border.

The State Emergency Service is continuing to monitor the situation, but says floodwater alerts are no longer in place.

Tasmania

Severe weather and flooding in Tasmania have caused extensive damage to parts of the rail network.

A large section of the bridge at Railton has been washed away and about 20km of the railway line has been damaged.