Flood crisis is back, isolating 11,000

Military helicopters evacuated stranded residents from flooded towns in eastern Australia yesterday as authorities warned of further flash flooding.

More than 11,000 people in Queensland state have been isolated by the flooding and thousands have been forced to leave their homes. The town of Moree in New South Wales, meanwhile, has been cut in half by record floodwaters. Peter Birch, who runs a cotton farm outside Moree, said floodwater had trapped him on the second storey of his home. "We woke up this morning with wallabies, kangaroos, an echidna and a koala sitting in the trees," he said.

Flash floods across Queensland and New South Wales in early 2011 killed around 35 people and swamped 30,000 houses.

Reuters