Australian towns submerged in flood after cyclone Debbie

Floodwaters enter in the parking lot outside the Robina Hospital on the Gold Coast as severe rain continue throughout south-east Queensland following cyclone Debbie on March 30, 2017.
/AFP

BRISBANE, Australia — Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from towns in two Australian states as authorities warned Friday there could be deaths from severe flooding caused by a powerful tropical cyclone.

Category four Cyclone Debbie hit northeastern Australia on Tuesday between Bowen and Airlie Beach in Queensland state, ripping up trees, washing boats onto land and causing widespread damage.

Debbie was downgraded to a tropical low as it tracked southeast, but continued to pack damaging gusts and dump huge amounts of rain all the way down the eastern coast to New South Wales state, south of Queensland, and Sydney.

Lismore near the NSW coast was hard hit, with the State Emergency Service (SES) warning of three-meter-high flood levels in the town.

“As we start to go out and try to find people that made… calls overnight, there could be some very distressing news,” SES acting Deputy Commissioner Mark Morrow told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

“There could be people overnight that perished in that flood; we don’t know at this stage.”

Other towns subject to evacuation orders include Tweed Heads, Kingscliff and Murwillumbah.

Farmer Peter Hannigan, whose property is just north of Lismore, said the deluge was the worst he had ever seen in more than 50 years in the area.
“I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of significant damage on the farms,” he told the ABC.

Farther north in Queensland, the popular tourist city of Gold Coast and other nearby regions were also inundated by water. Upper Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland recorded 789 mm of water during Thursday, the Bureau of Meteorology said./AFP