Two trapped drivers become first fatalities of Australia floods
- The first body, believed to be that of a 25-year-old Pakistani national, has yet to be formally identified
- An emergency crew later retrieved the body of David Hornman, 38, from an upturned pick-up truck in a flooded creek near Gold Coast city in Queensland state
Two men trapped in vehicles hundreds of miles apart have become the first fatalities of record flooding on Australia’s east coast.
A car became trapped in floodwater northwest of Sydney at dawn on Wednesday and emergency services later recovered it with a body inside, officials said. The body, believed to be that of a 25-year-old Pakistani national, has yet to be formally identified.
An emergency crew later retrieved the body of David Hornman from an upturned pick-up truck in a flooded creek 680 kilometres (420 miles) north near Gold Coast city in Queensland state, police said. The 38-year-old was last seen Monday.
While rain has eased across New South Wales and southern Queensland, flooding has persisted. Most rivers had peaked by Thursday, but 20,000 people were still evacuated from their homes, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
Emergency services have made hundreds of rescues since the flooding began last week. Parts of New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, have received one-in-50-year and one-in-100-year rainfall records in the past week.
Insurance companies expect the damage in New South Wales to exceed A$1 billion (US$760 million).
Before the Queensland death was reported, Prime Minister Scott Morrison expressed the Parliament’s condolences to the family of the man who died in the rural suburb of Sydney.
Morrison reflected on the state’s recent struggles – years of drought across most of the state culminated in catastrophic wildfires last summer. The fires were followed by the coronavirus pandemic and now record floods.