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Australian PM Pledges Aid For Flood-Hit Area
Residents hit by dramatic floods in Queensland will be eligible for disaster relief money, Australia's prime minister has said as she visited the affected area. Skip related content
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Heavy rains battered the state for several days and river levels have continued to rise, leading to water covering an area larger than France and Germany combined.
Some of the 200,000 people who live in the region have been forced to leave their homes and the military has sent planes to fly drop supplies into towns.
Julia Gillard, the prime minister, visited an evacuation centre and said families whose homes had been damaged could be in line for payments of 1,000 Australian dollars per adult (around £660) and 400 dollars per child.
She also said the federal government would give 1m dollars to an emergency fund started by the local government in Queensland.
Ms Gillard spoke to residents in Bundaberg and hugged one resident as she described watching a "sea of water" surge through her house.
Two towns have already been evacuated and a third, Rockhampton, is braced for flood levels to reach 31 feed (9.4 metres) next week. The roads may close at the weekend.
In the town of Emerald, around 1,000 of the 11,000 residents have already been forced to leave their homes.
Affected areas are suffering food shortages and power cuts. There are also concerns over water contamination.
Queensland premier Anna Bligh said: "Authorities think there will be a very large group of people who will be homeless in the next 24 hours."
She continued: "We now have three major river systems in flood; we have 17 evacuation centres active; we have more than 1,000 people in those evacuation centres and many more thousands staying with relatives and friends."
Northeastern Australia is often hit by heavy rainfall during the summer but the extent of the damage this year has been considered particularly severe.
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