The floods in Australia have inflicted an incredible “incredible” devastation to the communities of northern Queensland, said the Prime Minister of the State, even if the conditions ensure faster than expected.
Thousands of residents who have evacuated from their homes should come back on Tuesday, but hundreds of houses and businesses are feared were flooded.
“It is a disaster that will test the determination of people,” Prime Minister David Crisafulli told ABC.
Parties of the region have been beaten by almost 2 m (6.5 feet) of rain since Saturday, which caused flooding and floods, but the Prime Minister said that the weather conditions had been ” really nice “these last hours.
In Townsville, the inhabitants woke up with a gray sky but only from the drizzle, and the news that predicted the flood levels did not materialize. It was a striking contrast with the intense showers that beat the region in recent days.
The relaxation conditions mean that the people who had been advised to leave six suburbs of Townsville may have “dodged a ball,” said the Prime Minister after previous forecasts had suggested that up to 1,700 houses were in hazard.
But further north in the state, bad communications and damaged roads make it difficult to assess the extent of damage in the cities of Ingham and Cardwell.
“The more information there is, the more it seems to be real devastation,” said Crisafulli who grew up in Ingham.
“I saw water images in companies that never thought that in my wildest dreams, I thought that water in stores there in the high part of the city,” He declared.
More than 8,000 properties remain without electricity, according to the state supplier of the state, and the partial collapse of a critical highway continues to hinder efforts to help some of the hardest areas.
Crisafulli said that the recovery effort “would take some time”.
