On January 13th 2011 a major flood destroyed Queensland. The flood was caused by La Nina which is when an area gets an unusually large amount of rain. In Brisbane, the capital city, the water levels reached the highest at 4.46 meters when it started to recede. With houses being built trees are being uprooted so when high levels of water come flooding in there are no tree roots to stop erosion and to absorb water and with so much cement the water can not go under ground so it floods.
Social impacts
With a state the size of Germany and France combined completely flooded it was extremely difficult for first responders to give medical help to injured people. Across the state the flood related health challenges was trying to get access to clean drinking water, medicine and safe food. In Queensland wounds risked becoming infected and chronic illnesses escalated. But instead of physical trauma, the most coming symptom bringing people was stress related chest pain. Rockhampton suffered an out break of food poisoning due to food and water contamination, with sub tropical climate and power shortages speeding up the process of food rotting. For 24 hours people in Toowoomba had to boil there water to drink because of contamination. When the water reacted a certain level Queensland towns shut down utilities such as power, water and sewage services. The when people used different power sources like lanterns, generates and gas ranges inside homes they had the risk of dying from monoxide poisoning. So people who return to their homes they found them filled with toxic water, sewage, animal and human feces and petroleum products. Within 48 hours mold started to grow on carpets and on walls. Dampness indoors can last for weeks. The spores irritate allergies and asthma attacks especially in children. The mold also contaminated food. Many people also suffered from depression and anxiety from the disaster and the fear of losing someone close to them.
Economy impacts
It is estimated that the cost of the flood is 6-9 billion dollars mostly because of the destruction of Queensland and also because of the sharp decline in tourism even when main attractions like the great Barrier Reef were undamaged. Queensland economy will suffer a lot because there tourism is a very big industry and tourism operators in Queensland say it will be at least a year before things get back to normal. The floods have closed roads and disrupted agriculture, coal and transport industries. The biggest short term impact in the terms of dollars is the disruption to coal exports and figures put that at 400 million dollars a week. Australia is the worlds largest coal exporter and the state of Queensland is the main export. Because of the economic damage and the disruption of agriculture food was to be expected to rise as much as 50%.
Environmental impacts
75% of Queensland had been declared a disaster zone. rivers flooded and when the levels went back down fish were stranded and then rotted in the sun and the floods swept away trees and dirt. When the houses and buildings were destroyed debris were washed everywhere littering the state. Because of the shut down of power and sewage the flood waters were filled with human and animal feces and chemicals contaminating the water and the soil. When the coal mines were flooded the government approve to pump out water from 44 different coal mines ignoring most environmental laws. The water that was pumped out in to rivers was highly contaminated with chemical and other deadly poisons. This destroyed many plants and animals and people were very upset when they learned what their government did. It will be a very long time if not never that the environment will recover from this disaster.
Government Prevention
Queensland is on a flood plain so it is impossible to prevent flooding but the council has developed a Brisbane's flood smart future strategy. The buildings in the future will be built with higher levels off the ground and to build in back flow devices to help curb the severity of future floods.
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