Australian residents fled their homes and sandbagged properties yesterday as a major town was threatened by a worsening flood disaster that unleashed a plague of snakes and crocodiles.
Tens of thousands of people in Rockhampton braced for complete isolation as waters that have inundated an area bigger than France and Germany, and closed the town’s airport and railway, lapped at the last remaining road link.
Rumors of crocodile sightings swept the besieged cattle-farming center northeast of Brisbane, population 75,000, while snakes up to 2m long were spotted around the town center.
PHOTO: AFP
The snakes, including highly venomous taipans, brown snakes and red-bellied blacks, are climbing trees and hiding in people’s houses as they search for dry refuge, residents said.
“The snakes are a massive problem, I’ve shut all the doors because they’re coming in,” said Suzanne Miller, owner of the Pioneer Hotel pub, adding that her mother was “almost killed” by a brown snake.
“She is living on a boat near here and it was curled round the rope,” Miller said. “She could feel the tongue flicking on to her face to test how far away it was, ready to bite, and then it jumped into her lap.”
Miller said her mother’s husband used a stick to flick the snake into the water, adding that the boat almost capsized as the pair leaped around and screamed in panic.
Emergency officials warned that the snakes were aggressive, while crocodiles flushed from rivers by the rising floods could easily be mistaken for debris.
“[Snakes are] in their mating season and they’ve been flushed out of their environment ... snakes are very, very cranky right now,” State Emergency Service (SES) operations director Scott Mahaffey said.
“[And] the problem with crocodiles now is it’s very, very hard to pick [them out] with the amount of debris,” he said.
One SES volunteer told reporters he had seen “two cops hightailing it out of the water with a croc going past.”
Thousands of poisonous cane toads were also spotted around Rockhampton, while authorities say the town will also be hit by sandflies and disease-carrying mosquitoes breeding in the standing water.
About 200 people have evacuated on foot or by boat, including two pregnant women who went into labor. Some 200 homes are already flooded, with the Fitzroy River bisecting the town expected to peak at 9.4m today and tomorrow.
“I know people around here are pretty tough, but if your house gets smashed up pretty bad and you have lost all of your kids’ presents [it’s difficult],” Mahaffey said.
Rockhampton, 500km from Brisbane and a hub for the farming and coal-mining region, is now the focus for what officials call “biblical” floods affecting 200,000 people across Queensland state.
Weeks of heavy rains have swollen rivers to record levels, deluging mines and farms, washing away bridges and forcing military evacuations of entire towns by helicopter.
Ten people have died trying to negotiate fast-running waters in vehicles, swimming or on foot over the past month, while the disaster is expected to cost several billion US dollars.
Flooded mines and railways and closed ports have hammered Queensland’s all-important production of hard coking coal, much of it bound for urbanizing Asia’s steel mills.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed condolences on Monday for the dead and offered aid, while New Zealand promised to send an emergency response team.
In Rockhampton, the military trucked in supplies and police frog-marched one reluctant resident from his home after the dwelling was considered too dangerous to remain in as the waters rose.
Other parts of the state are already cleaning up after the worst of the flooding passed, but officials say relief and recovery operations could last for weeks.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source