Greg Ansley: Sense of unreality in Brisbane

The Brisbane River peaked at 4am, breaching further into the CBD. Photo / NZPA

BRISBANE - The sense of unreality continues in Brisbane today.

The day broke to clear blue skies and the news that the Brisbane River had peaked well below the worst fears, effectively saving 8000 homes from inundation.

But from my vantage point, high in the CBD, the frightening power of the brown surge heading towards Moreton Bay leaves no mistake about the devastation that this flood has done to the Queensland capital.

At the river's peak at about 4am (7am NZT), water pumped from over-taxed drainage systems into the blacked-out business centre, lapping at emergency workers' feet as they barricaded shops and offices with sandbags, and rapidly submerging entire streets.

Across the river, the lower floors of buildings are under water. The brown tide laps at the foot of the ferris wheel on South Bank.

It is immeasurably worse in the stricken suburbs.

Homes are submerged up to their roofs, floodwaters churn through shopping centres, and industrial parks are inundated.

I have watched the debris of these lives race down the Brisbane River, swirling in the turbulence and whirlpools, smashing against bridges and joining the mass of destruction flooding into Moreton Bay.

Chunks of pontoon with tables still atop them, tyres, caravans, boats, furniture, rainwater tanks...

But the real scale of this disaster is too large to easily comprehend.

The human suffering is all too stark; the estimates of damage and cost astronomical.

Yet even the agonies of the past few days are only part of the tragedy that has overtaken Queensland.

The floods and their aftermath continue to the north, west and south of Brisbane - and these follow earlier inundations, ferocious enough in their own right.

The task of rebuilding will be both monumental and heart-wrenching.

Watch live video of the Brisbane River in flood: