Water torture flows south in Australia (correction)

Feb 8, 2012, 5:38 GMT

Sydney - Floodwaters coursed through Australia's prime east coast farming land Wednesday, threatening catastrophe to downstream communities and leaving misery and heartbreak in their wake.

Huge lakes have formed over what is usually pasture for cattle or fields for crops in a north-south corridor 500 kilometres west of Brisbane, the Queensland state capital.

While most of the 3,800 people ordered to leave the Queensland town of St George last weekend will return to homes saved from inundation by earthworks thrown up against the advancing water, the people of Roma and Mitchell, towns to the north of St George, have not been so fortunate.

As many as 290 houses in Roma and 288 homes in Mitchell had water above the floorboards - a tally that does not include outlying properties.

Defence Force personnel have been dispatched to Roma and Mitchell, where around three-quarters of houses have water inside them, to help with salvage and provide food and shelter.

Bureau of Meteorology senior hydrologist Hugh Bruist said there was no end in sight to the emergency, warning that towns along swollen rivers would be knocked out one by one as the floodwaters made their months-long journey to south coast estuaries.

'Water is travelling much as we would expect from looking at historic records,' he said. 'It will make its way down and arrive in the Darling (river system) later in the month.'

The flip side of the region's third major flood in as many years is the prospect of another bumper year for farmers whose stores of water have been recharged but who have not lost homes, stock or equipment.

'Three big seasons in a row - it's just incredible,' Angus Emmott, who raises cattle near the town of Longreach, told national broadcaster ABC. 'After 10 years of drought you just rub your eyes and look around at all the green feed and think 'wow.''