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Australian Floods Force Evacuations, Threatening Queensland Crops
By Rebecca Keenan - Dec 27, 2010 8:29 PM MT


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The Nogoa River is flooded after heavy rains, in Emerald, Queensland, Australia. Photographer: Elisabeth Behrmann/Bloomberg

An aerial view of flooding in Rockhampton, Queensland. Photographer: Elisabeth Behrmann/Bloomberg

There is little coal in the stockpiles waiting to be loaded onto a train after flooding hampered production, near Blackwater in central Queensland. Photographer: Elisabeth Behrmann/Bloomberg
Flooding and heavy rainfall in Australia’s Queensland, the nation’s largest sugar and coal producing region, may continuetoday as the state government declares disaster zones and evacuates residents.
Sixteen flood warnings are in place for different parts of the state as monsoonal showers and storms cross the region, the Bureau of Meteorology said on its website today. People in the Central Highlands and Coalfields, Wide Bay, Burnett and Capricornia districts have been warned to expect flash flooding, it said. Flood warnings are also in place for parts of the neighboring state of New South Wales.
Three hundred people are being evacuated by aircraft from the town of Theodore, about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Sydney, Queensland Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said in a statement today. Theodore and other towns including Chinchilla, Dalby, Alpha, Jericho and Warra have all been declared disaster situations, he said.
“Residents are urged to leave their homes early if they are threatened by flooding,” he said. The continued rain will exacerbate the significant and widespread flooding, he said.
Australia had its wettest September-to-November spring on record, prompting mining companies including Xstrata Plc and Vale SA to declare force majeure on coal deliveries. Rio Tinto Group, the world’s third-largest mining company, said all its coal mines in the state have been affected by the rains.
‘Significant Rainfall’
“We have had significant rainfall and all our operations are impacted,” Alison Smith, a spokeswoman for Rio’s coal unit, said by phone from Brisbane today. The company is trying to resume output where it can and hasn’t declared force majeure. Force majeure is a legal clause that allows a company to miss deliveries because of circumstances beyond its control.
BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, will report any significant impact on its coal mines in the region in its next quarterly production report, spokeswoman Kelly Quirke said by phone today.
The flooding would cause unharvested, weather-damaged wheat and chick pea crops in southern Queensland to be left in fields while some recently planted cotton and sorghum crops were underwater, Wayne Newton, grains president of farmer group Agforce, said by phone from Dalby.
Harvest Progress
“There has been very little harvest progress in the last fortnight because of continual wet weather and I would suspect that a lot of that wheat would be unharvestable,” he said. Reduced quality and crop losses this season likely cut the value of the state’s winter grain production by a range of about A$300 million ($302 million) to A$400 million, he said.
The rain and flooding could also reduce sorghum and cotton production potential amid the risk of more heavy falls as the state entered the start of its normal wet season, he said.
“We have pretty well the whole of the state already saturated, all of the river systems just about in full flood and soil profiles that can’t take any more,” he said.
The record rainfall may curb the next sugar season’s production and shipments for a second year, Queensland Sugar Ltd. Chairman Alan Winney said Dec. 23. Australia is the third- largest sugar exporter. The wet weather forced producers to leave some cane unharvested.
To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Keenan in Melbourne [e-mail]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Iain Wilson at [e-mail]