Greg Ansley: 'We are the people they breed tough'

More than 30 suburbs in the state capital have been inundated. Photo / Getty images

As the worst of the Brisbane flooding recedes, leaving thousands of homes and businesses under water, a numbed Queensland is beginning to count the cost of what Premier Anna Bligh described as the worst disaster in its history.

The crisis is not over: including Brisbane and neighbouring Ipswich, 70 communities remain affected, many isolated, and late yesterday the western towns of Condamine and Goondiwindi were again facing inundation.

And the human toll is rising. Yesterday, a man's body was recovered in the stricken Lockyer Valley, and a 24-year-man was sucked to his death in a Brisbane drain while checking his father's property, taking the number of confirmed victims to 15.

"Please stay safe," Bligh said. "This is still a very dangerous situation."

More bad news seems inevitable.

Focused heavily on the areas around Grantham and Murphys Creek near the bottom of the Toowoomba Range, police and soldiers using helicopters and military four-wheel-drives are hunting for more victims.

Late yesterday, 61 people were still missing, and grave fears were held for 12.

The country being searched is rugged, and was hammered by massive force.

Cars were swept off roads and beneath bridges, houses were shattered, and people were swept from their homes.

Teams are now searching creeks, rivers, damaged homes, and even paddocks where victims could lie beneath debris.

"As we confront the challenge before us, I want us to remember who we are," an emotional Bligh said. "We are Queenslanders. We are the people that they breed tough north of the border, we're the ones that they knock down and get up again.

"This may break our hearts ... but it will not break our will."

That spirit will be sorely needed.

Brisbane got off more lightly than expected during yesterday's dawn peak, with the Brisbane River rising to 4.46m instead of the predicted 5.5m. That saved 4000 homes.

But floods still poured into more than 30 suburbs, drowning 14,000 homes and businesses, and damaging a further 17,000.

Another predicted 4.2m peak late yesterday underscored the reality that the danger may be starting to ease, but it is far from over.

Floodwaters will abate only slowly, and will remain for days. That leaves thousands of people unable to return home, and 103,000 without power across the region, unable to cook, shower or wash.

Even those not directly affected have suffered.

One city worker's wife and home were safe, but two daughters lost everything.

The river, increasingly presenting health threats, continues to pump debris into Moreton Bay.

Yesterday morning, a tugboat captain won praise for shoving a 300 tonne piece of the city's RiverWalk on to a mudbank.

As the river hit its highest peak yesterday, water erupted from drains in Brisbane's blacked-out CBD, rising rapidly and becoming minor rivers as emergency workers stacked sandbags against the doors and windows of shops and offices.

Businesses and apartments along the riverbank sank beneath a brown tide powerful enough to rip the RiverWalk from its moorings and drive it downriver, joining yachts, tanks and other debris which threatened the huge Gateway Bridge, forcing its closure several times during the night.

On South Bank, water surged through lower levels of the Cultural Centre, and the compound was closed as engineers warned of a potentially deadly meeting of flood and electricity.

Behind the centre, streets became rivers that rose to waist deep in places.

The Albion Park race track was also under water. Rocklea Markets, Brisbane's major fresh produce centre, was a lake, its fruit and vegetables floating as it submerged.

"This is absolutely, massively, a catastrophe," Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said.