Australian mayor says flood recovery may take a year

Australian mayor says flood recovery may take a year
A map showing areas in Queensland hit by flood waters. Tens of thousands of... It could take a year for Rockhampton to recover from disastrous floods, the Australian town's mayor said Thursday, as the waters threatened the neighbouring state of New South Wales. "I think that this could drag on for 12 months," Mayor Brad Carter said, adding that it would take three weeks before Rockhampton's airport reopened, even though the floods appeared to have peaked just below the expected level. "It look...

Australian floods spread, threaten Barrier Reef
Stumble This! Australia's disastrous floods have spread to 40 towns and are threatening the world-famous Great Barrier Reef as tonnes of sludge pour into the sea, officials and scientists said Wednesday. As anxious residents scrambled to build emergency levees and authorities counted billions of dollars in economic damage, researchers said the iconic reef's corals could be damaged by run-off from Australia's eastern coast. James Cook University researcher Michelle Devlin said floodwaters carryi...

Flooded Queensland gets more heavy rain
BRISBANE, Australia, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Heavy Rain fell in Australia's flooded Queensland state Thursday and officials said it could take a year for ravaged towns to recover. Once again, more rain was forecast. Water levels in the worst Flooding in a half century were expected to stay high in many areas for at least one more week, with forecasters predicting Flash Floods in communities this weekend where hundreds of homes are already underwater. At least 10 people have died in weather-related incid...

Storm 'to worsen Australia flood'
Why is Queensland flooded? More Heavy Rain is forecast for eastern Australia, threatening Flash Floods for communities where hundreds of homes are already under water. Forecasters predict central and southern Queensland will be worst hit by the latest deluge which will last into the weekend. In the city of Rockhampton about 500 homes were evacuated as the Fitzroy river peaked at 9.2m (30ft). The town of St George is braced for the Balonne river to peak by Sunday. About 1,200 homes across Queensl...

New storms soak flood-weary Australian communities
BRISBANE, Australia - Cleanup crews toiled under more pounding rains Thursday to clear mountains of debris in flood-ravaged communities across northeastern Australia, as one mayor warned it could take his city up to a year to recover from the worst Flooding in decades. Officials were only beginning to see the scope of the damage as river levels across Queensland state started dropping despite new thunderstorms. Floodwaters were expected to stay high in many areas for at least another week,...

New storms soak flood-weary Australian communities
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Cleanup crews toiled under more pounding rains Thursday to clear mountains of debris in flood-ravaged communities across northeastern Australia, as one mayor warned it could take his city up to a year to recover from the worst Flooding in decades. Officials were only beginning to see the scope of the damage as river levels across Queensland state started dropping despite new thunderstorms. Floodwaters were expected to stay high in many areas for at least another ...

Residents of flooded Australian city face long recovery
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Floodwaters in an inundated city on Australia's coast held steady below their predicted peak on Wednesday, as exhausted residents were warned they would face a long wait before the churning, muddy mess dries up. Residents of the waterlogged city of Rockhampton were hopeful the river had swelled to its highest level, with the mayor saying the community appeared to have been spared any further damage. Water from the overflowing Fitzroy River has already swamped 20...

Australian city hitting flood peak
Flood preparations in the inundated Australian city of Rockhampton are being put to the test as river levels hit their peak. The River Fitzroy which flows through the Queensland city is at 9.2m (30ft) and expected to hit 9.4m, having already swamped hundreds of acres. Officials say more than 400 homes will be flooded and another 4,000 will have water pouring through their gardens. Many residents have already evacuated, some forced to do so by police. More than 100 people spent the night in an e...

Flooded Australian city faces long wait to dry out
Australia put an army general in charge of flood recovery efforts today after weeks of Heavy Rains deluged the country's northeast, crippling the area's economy, including the Coal Mining industry. Floodwaters have forced most of Queensland state's Coal Mines to shut and some may not restart production for months, ministers said at an emergency Cabinet meeting in Brisbane, the state capital. After the meeting, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh announced that Major General Mick Slater would lead th...

Asian shares fall after weak Wall Street finish
Asian shares mostly fell in early trading Friday after the Dow Jones industrial average turned negative for the first time this year. Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average slipped 0.1 percent to 10,516.61 as investors took profits after the index hit an eight-month closing high the previous day. South Korea's Kospi was off 0.1 percent to 10,517.44, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.3 percent to 4,708.70. Concerns about the financial impact of the floods in northeastern Australia continued to dra...

No Aquatic Mad Max in Australia
Writing in spiked, Tim Black contrasts the coverage of the Queensland floods with the actual conditions on the ground: as the coverage of Queensland's misfortune has unfolded, the hype and fear-stoking has increased: the number of people in need of Evacuation is supposedly in the thousands; myriad unscrupulous looting types are waiting in the watery wings; saltwater crocodiles have supposedly been sighted making their way into Rockhampton; and, as a headline in the UK's Daily Telegraph declared...

More rain forecast for Queensland
ROCKHAMPTON, Australia, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Officials say it's too soon to tell whether the worst is over in the in flood-ravaged portions of Queensland in Australia. Driving that concern home, the weather bureau issued a severe weather warning for flood-affected Rockhampton along the Fitzroy River basin, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Wednesday. Officials said the Fitzroy would peak at 31 feet, but hydrologist Paul Birch said the river has hung around the 30-foot mark since Tuesday. Off...

Australians Watch, And Wait, For Flooding To Recede
The worst Flooding to hit Australia in a half-century appeared to have peaked in the country's northeast on Wednesday, but residents of one coastal city were warned that it may be weeks before the waters recede. The mayor of Rockhampton, the last major town inundated by the slow-moving flood in Queensland state, said the city appeared to have been spared any further damage as the chocolate-brown floodwaters were holding below their predicted peak. The Fitzroy River, which flows through Rockhampt...

Australia floods cause possibly years of damage
By Daniel Munoz GLADSTONE, Australia | Thu Jan 6, 2011 9:58pm EST GLADSTONE, Australia (Reuters) - Australia's flood-stricken Coal Industry may face months of disruptions as reports emerge of key rail and road links being washed away, while some infrastructure may take years to repair, authorities said on Friday. "There are some aspects of the rebuilding of infrastructure that will take, potentially, years," Major-General Mick Slater, chief of the flood recovery operation in Queensland state,...

Australia floods cause possibly years of damage
GLADSTONE, Australia (Reuters) - Australia's flood-stricken Coal Industry may face months of disruptions as reports emerge of key rail and road links being washed away, while some infrastructure may take years to repair, authorities said on Friday. "There are some aspects of the rebuilding of infrastructure that will take, potentially, years," Major-General Mick Slater, chief of the flood recovery operation in Queensland state, told a news conference in Rockhampton. "We still don't know what it...

Australia floods cause 'catastrophic' damage
Australia's record floods are causing catastrophic damage to infrastructure in the state of Queensland and have forced 75 percent of its Coal Mines — which fuel Asia's steel mills — to grind to a halt, Queensland's premier said Wednesday. The worst Flooding in decades has affected an area the size of Germany and France, left towns virtual islands in a muddy inland sea, devastated crops, cut major rail and road links to coal ports, slashed exports and forced up world coal prices. Ar...

Coal prices soar as warmest sea surface temperatures on record fuel biblical Australian floods
Australian floods now cover an area “the size of France and Germany combined.” Yesterday, their government’s Bureau of Meteorology released its “Annual Australian Climate Statement 2010,” which helps explain why — record sea Surface Temperatures: Based on preliminary data (to November 30), sea surface temperatures in the Australian region during 2010 were +0.54 °C above the 1961 to 1990 average. This is the warmest value on record for the Australian region. In

Australia floods: new storms hit flood region
Heavy rains fell in eastern Australia on Thursday, bringing fresh misery to flood-hit communities as the mayor of the flooded city of Rockhampton warned it could take up to a year to recover from the worst Flooding in decades....

Flooded Queensland faces months of rain
ROCKHAMPTON, Australia, Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Heavy Rain was forecast to fall again Wednesday in Australia's flooded Queensland state, and forecasters said wet weather is expected to last for three months. Flooding has killed at least 10 people, emergency officials said. The Royal Australian Air Force has been shuttling supplies to stranded areas. "The thing we are all very fearful of is that we've only just started our wet season: We've got three months of cyclone season to go," said Brent Finlay, pr...

GDP projections from PwC: how China, India and Brazil will overtake the West by 2050
GDP projections from consultancy PwC show how the US, UK and the west will fall far behind the new economic powers like China in GDP by 2050. See what the data says GDP projections to 2050: how the rankings change. Click image for graphic. Illustration: Jenny Ridley for the Guardian What will the world look like in 2050? For a number of years, the Economists at PwC have been charting the rise of the big emerging countries and seeking to calculate the moment when the G7 industrial nations wi...

Australia Flooding Creates Global Ripple Effect
Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser has called the recent Flooding in Australia a "disaster of biblical proportion." Flood waters have covered an area larger than the state of Texas. The Flooding is also having a global impact on wheat and coal prices. The severe Flooding has turned the city of Rockhampton's streets into raging rivers. "What's happening here in Rockhampton is - well, I don't think we're going to see it again for another 50 or 100 years," said Anna Bligh, Queensland State Premi...

Australia floods cause 'catastrophic' damage
ROCKHAMPTON, Australia -- Australia's record floods are causing catastrophic damage to infrastructure in the state of Queensland and have forced 75 percent of its Coal Mines, which fuel Asia's steel mills, to grind to a halt, Queensland's premier said on Wednesday. The worst Flooding in decades has affected an area the size of Germany and France, leaving towns virtual islands in a muddy inland sea, devastated crops, cut major rail and road links to coal ports, slashed exports and forced up world...

Why all the dead animals?
Here's a list of the major cases.  Here is a Google Map.  From National Geographic, here is a responsible account.  Loud noises, Fireworks, crashes, and an availability cascade seem to be the major hypotheses under consideration.  Cold weather and poisoning and hypoxia have been cited as well.  Don't forget the dead fishes and crabs; the world seems slightly more sub-Malthusian than before. Here is Twitter on #deadbirds.  In Germany and Schweiz...

Australia floods cause "catastrophic" damage
By Daniel Munoz ROCKHAMPTON, Australia | Tue Jan 4, 2011 9:24pm EST ROCKHAMPTON, Australia (Reuters) - Australia's record floods are causing catastrophic damage to infrastructure in the state of Queensland and have forced 75 percent of its Coal Mines, which fuel Asia's steel mills, to grind to a halt, Queensland's premier said on Wednesday. The worst Flooding in decades has affected an area the size of Germany and France, left towns virtual islands in a muddy inland sea, cut major rail and ro...

Indian inflation: Enough to make your eyes water
JAGIR SINGH has sold red onions at Kotla market in south Delhi every day for the past half-century. Perched on an upturned crate, wrapped tight against the chill air, he offers pyaz, a staple for much Indian cooking, for 60 rupees ($1.33) a kilo, the most he can remember. Business is brisk but most customers pick up only a small handful of onions. That is just as well: wholesale supplies are tight, he says, and the quality is poor. As India’s economy grows by some 9% a year, food prices ar...