BRISBANE, Australia — Floodwaters peaked in the Australian city of Brisbane on Thursday, swamping tens of thousands of homes and businesses as locals began to count the cost of an ongoing natural disaster that has inundated vast swathes of the country’s northeast and killed at least 25 people.Officials said the vast flood zone could remain under water for days, after which the region’s weary residents will have to contend with a cleanup of “postwar proportions.”
Both the Brisbane and Bremer rivers reached peaks that were well below the worst-case levels that had been predicted by hydrologists. The Brisbane River, which snakes through Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland, crested early on Thursday at about 15 feet, roughly 2.5 feet lower than the worst-case situation that had been predicted.
Nevertheless, officials said that the waters were unlikely to subside before the weekend and that thousands of people could be homeless for months.
“We now face a reconstruction task of postwar proportions,” the state premier, Anna Bligh, told reporters, at times choking back tears. “That is how we are seeing it, and that is the sort of steely determination we will require.”
Eastern-moving flash floods that killed at least 15 people in the last week slammed into Brisbane, a city of two million people, and other densely populated coastal areas of Queensland on Wednesday. Officials said 10 people had previously died in flooding across the state since December.
Homes and businesses were totally or partially submerged when the two major river systems burst their banks, sending a vast brown tide through dozens of neighborhoods. The torrent damaged roads and highways, and ripped a 960-foot long concrete boardwalk from its foundations and sent it down the swollen Brisbane River.
In Ipswich, a city of 150,000 people about 20 miles west of Brisbane, officials estimated that 3,000 homes and businesses were flooded when the Bremer River overflowed. Aerial images showed murky water lapping at the awnings of businesses along the main street. Colorful rooftops and the tips of palm trees dotted the water like lily pads. In Brisbane more than 25,000 homes were flooded as well as 5,000 businesses.
As floodwaters dropped later Thursday, many residents got a first look at the damage to homes and businesses. In the inner Brisbane suburb of Rosalie, locals ferried one elderly woman, Barbara Etchison, by inflatable canoe through brown water filled with rubbish to retrieve several bags of sodden clothes.
Ms. Etchison, who lives alone, said she had been assured by the City Council that her house would not be seriously affected by floods. She was forced to frantically scramble for documents and a few sentimental possessions with one elderly friend as water levels surged. With little help from neighbors, Ms. Etchison said she was forced to stay helplessly at her friend’s house as shoulder-height water destroyed most of her belongings.
Like many people in Queensland, Ms. Etchison said she was not insured for flood damage and she is unsure how she will rebuild. “I have no idea. I’m so sick and I’m so tired because I’ve had such little help,” she said, staring back over the water to her house. “These boys have come to help today and it’s such a blessing but it was only by accident. I saw them up the street and asked them if they would be able to do this.”
Next door, Ms. Etchison’s neighbor, Elizabeth Dempsey, said she was much luckier — a group of strangers arrived on Wednesday before floodwaters peaked and saved everything she owned.
“They’ve gone through and those guys I’d imagine were going all day clearing stuff from house to house to house. Unbelievable,” she said. “Honestly, there’s no words to say thank you. My house was completely empty I’d say within half an hour.
“Just awesome. Awesome, mate. I tell you, us Aussies are good people.”
Earlier Thursday, thousands of people sought refuge with friends and family while thousands more fled to dozens of evacuation centers. Volunteers at one of the largest centers set up a supervised play area in the corner to help distract children as their parents sat glued to news reports.
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For many others, “It won’t really set in until they get back to their property and look at what’s going on, and face up to what they’ve got coming as far as recovery goes,” she said.
Essan al-Quraishi, an Iraqi agronomist who moved his family to Brisbane four months ago, was able to grab some clothes and vital documents before the waters flooded his first-floor apartment.
“The most important thing is my family. I can start again,” he said as his 7-year-old son played with a jigsaw puzzle nearby. “We managed to survive in Iraq, so we can manage to survive here.”
There were isolated reports of looting across the city, but police said the atmosphere around Brisbane had been mostly orderly.
With the floodwaters still swirling in many neighborhoods, some residents have ignored official warnings to stay away and used kayaks and motorboats to rescue their belongings.
Police said a 24-year-old man became Brisbane’s first flood casualty when he was swept into a storm drain while trying to check on his father’s property.
Meanwhile, search and rescue crews continued to comb through the devastated farm houses and creek beds of the Lockyer Valley, where most of the deaths occurred. Dozens of people — including entire families — remained unaccounted for in the valley, where a massive flash flood tossed cars like dice and razed whole towns.
Officials have repeatedly warned that the number of deaths is likely to rise but it may be some time before the final toll is known. Dozens of people remained missing.
After enduring a decade of one of the worst droughts in Australian history, Queensland has been hit by driving rains since November and property damage is in the billions of dollars.
One board member of the Reserve Bank of Australia, the central bank, warned on Wednesday that the disaster could shave up to 1 percent off Australia’s gross domestic product.
The floods have virtually paralyzed Queensland’s lucrative coal and agricultural industries. The state produces roughly one-third of the world’s supply of coking coal, used in steel production. Industry analysts say global prices of coking coal and thermal coal, used to supply power plants, will rise because of the flooding.
