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SHAKE AND BLOW
Australia evacuates flooded towns after deadly Cyclone Debbie
By Patrick HAMILTON
Beenleigh, Australia (AFP) March 31, 2017


Sharknado: Australia warns of snakes, crocs and sharks in floods
Sydney (AFP) March 31, 2017 - Wading through flooded areas can be dangerous anywhere in the world, but in Australia the waters may contain snakes, crocodiles and sharks as well as rubbish and sewage.

One of the striking images showing the impact of category four Cyclone Debbie which smashed through northeast Australia this week was a paramedic's photo of a large bull shark that washed up on a road near the town of Ayr.

And sharks are not the only unusual sightings in floodwaters in Australia's tropical north. Queensland state authorities warned that crocodiles and snakes could also be lurking around after Debbie hit.

"Flooded waterways increase the possibilities of crocodiles and other animals, such as snakes turning up in unexpected places," the state's environment and heritage protection department said.

"In most circumstances, crocodiles will be moving through, trying to get out of fast-flowing creeks and waterways to the quieter areas they prefer.

"Snakes are good swimmers and they too may turn up in unexpected places and may even find their way into people's properties."

Paramedic Lisa Smith, who photographed the bull shark, said she was stunned to find it lying near the Burdekin River.

"At first I thought it was a dolphin, but then I thought 'nah, there wouldn't be any dolphins around here,'" Smith told Brisbane's Courier Mail.

"I thought there were just crocs in that river. This should definitely teach people to never walk in floodwaters as you never know what's in them."

Snake catcher Anthony Bailey, from Yeppoon in central Queensland, offered on Facebook to remove the reptiles for free after the storm, and received a flood of responses.

"Already had a brown (snake) at our back door. Good on you guys for offering free assistance during this time," one person replied.

Bailey said snakes were fond of slithering indoors in wet conditions.

"They don't like sitting out in the rain, they come into houses or trees to escape the water and possibly looking for some warmth," he told the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin.

Australia is home to 20 of the world's 25 most venomous snakes, including the entire top 10.

Brown snakes, among the most venomous, are common in eastern Australia and can be as much as two metres (six feet) long when fully grown. Their bite can be fatal to humans.

A second woman's body was found Friday and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from towns in two Australian states after torrential rain 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 east coast to New South Wales state, south of Queensland, and Sydney.

NSW Police said the body of a woman who "disappeared in floodwaters overnight from a rural property" near Murwillumbah just south of the Queensland border was found on Friday.

The body of a 64-year-old woman, whose vehicle was swept off a causeway on a property in Gungal, about 300 kilometres (190 miles) north of Sydney, on Thursday night, was recovered Friday.

The woman's 74-year-old husband, who was also in the vehicle, managed to get out.

Lismore, south of Murwillumbah near the NSW coast was hard hit, with the State Emergency Service (SES) warning of three-metre (10-feet) high flood levels in the town.

Earlier Friday, SES acting deputy commissioner Mark Morrow said he had fears for some missing residents from Lismore.

"As we start to go out and try to find people that made... calls overnight, there could be some very distressing news," he 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.

"It is the worst I have ever seen I have to admit."

- Clean-up efforts -

Further 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 millimetres (31 inches) of water on Thursday, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The weather bureau's regional director Bruce Gunn said that across southeast Queensland, where Gold Coast is located, there had been widespread rainfall of 100-300 mm over the last two days.

"In terms of what happened in the last 24 or 48 hours, we have seen some pretty big rainfall totals," he told Brisbane's Courier Mail.

"There is still that strong risk around the Gold Coast."

Focus has turned to the restoration of essential services such as water and electricity in the areas hit by Debbie, including Bowen, Mackay and the Whitsunday islands where some 50,000 people were still without power, officials said.

The military has mobilised 1,300 soldiers to help assess the full extent of damage and aid the clean-up, with helicopters and planes deploying to restore infrastructure and supply emergency food, water and fuel.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said some 2,000 properties had been assessed, with about 270 severely damaged.

"The army is doing everything it can to get water into those parts of North Queensland that I mentioned -- Airlie, Proserpine, Bowen and the Whitsunday islands," she told reporters.

"We also have structural engineers that are on the ground at the moment."

The Insurance Council of Australia declared the Queensland and northern NSW regions disaster zones, adding that the damage bill could reach Aus$1 billion (US $770 million).

"The overall event will certainly be in the hundreds of millions of dollars," the council's chief Rob Whelan told reporters Friday.

He compared it to Cyclone Oswald, a category five storm which hit in 2013 and caused over Aus$1 billion in damage.

SHAKE AND BLOW
'Monster' cyclone Debbie batters northeast Australia
Ayr, Australia (AFP) March 28, 2017
A "monster" cyclone that smashed into northeast Australia with coastal residents battling lashing rain and howling winds was downgraded to a tropical low system on Wednesday as Australians got ready to assess the damage. The category four storm slammed into the coast of Queensland state on Tuesday with destructive wind gusts of up to 270 kph (167 miles) near its broad core, causing blackout ... read more

Related Links
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