Extreme weather in the Pacific

Two dead as floods hammer Fiji tourist region 

Stuff,

25, January, 2012

The main airport city of Nadi is under water and while Lautoka, Ba and Rakiraki are suffering damage with a persistent tropical depression.

Fiji's National Weather Forecasting Centre this morning cancelled the severe wind warning but has predicted several more days of heavy rain and thunderstorms.

Farmers in two separate incidents have been killed by raging rivers.

State owned Fiji Broadcasting reports that a group of tourists were rescued in Nadi last evening after rapidly rising flood waters trapped them

It said the military managed to get to the group and get them out to the nearby Nadi international airport.

International flights are continuing, but the Air Pacific flight to Auckland today is running over an hour behind as passengers struggled to get to the airport.

Concern is growing around Denarau, a tourist complex built on an artificial set of islands near the mouth of the flooding Nadi River.

The broadcaster says travel in the west has become increasingly difficult.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated in villages and towns in the west.

Fast rising rivers on the Coral Coast through to Sigatoka are also beginning to cause damage.

A spokeswoman for the military regime, Sharon Smith-Johns, last night warned Fiji to "take precautions and listen to news for updates there are concerns that the weather will worsen in the next 12 hours."

An Auckland based at Namaka, near Nadi, emailed Stuff saying that they had been hit by a "most almighty down poor."

The man, who only wanted to be identified as Matt, said Nadi is under about half a metre of water.

"The turn off to Denarau (the Denarau Roundabout) was completely submerged," he reported.

"There were a few cars abandoned so I did not proceed any further as the water was flowing pretty quickly.

"I spoke to a local standing under a bus shelter and he advised me the river that runs alongside Nadi is very high."

He said they had received plenty of warnings about the flooding.

"A lot of companies here started letting people go home before lunchtime today in case there were any issues for them getting home."

One year after the diasastrous Queensland floods....

Women missing in Queensland floods

Two women are missing and authorities have been forced to launch more than 16 swift water rescues after a night of heavy rain caused flooding across south-east Queensland.

ABC, 

25 Janaury, 2012

Hundreds of millimetres of rain has been dumped across Brisbane and the Gold and Sunshine coasts, bringing flash flooding, landslips, hundreds of road closures and evacuations.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a severe weather warning for today, saying flooding could worsen in some areas, with more heavy rain predicted throughout the day and for the rest of the week.

Two women are missing after their car was reportedly swept off a road near the Glass House Mountains overnight.

Emergency Management Queensland's Bruce Grady says swift water rescue crews are searching for the women after their empty car was found in flood waters about 9:00pm (AEST).

"It's occurred in the Glass House Mountains. It's very sketchy information at the moment but police are attending to that," he said.

South of Brisbane two people are stranded on the roof of a car at Oxenford after the car was swept off a flooded road into a creek and onto a small island which is surrounded by about 100 metres of raging water.

Overnight, Upper Springbrook saw some of the heaviest rainfalls, with 193 millimetres in the 12 hours to 6:00am. Lower Springbrook recorded 173mm, Upper Tallebudgera had 142mm and there was 127mm at Mt Tamborine. Brisbane city and suburbs saw between 80 and 120 millimetres.

Fox Rogers from the Sunshine Coast disaster management centre says there are fears some small towns there could become isolated.

"If the rain continues to fall at the current rate, yes it's quite likely that some of these small townships will be isolated," he said.

"That can happen fairly quickly; the water comes up as it rains, and then the water can also go down. It really will depend on the amount of rain that keeps falling over the next few hours."

Police have reported dozens of traffic incidents since the big wet began and officials are warning people to stay out of floodwaters.

EMQ director of operations Warren Bridson says emergency crews worked through a "long, hard night" all over the south-east of the state.

"The predictions are... more rain tonight and again tomorrow [Wednesday]," he said last night.

"I would expect the disaster management systems will escalate [on Wednesday], if that transpires therefore there will be more activities around the local disaster management groups.

"We're asking the community to really be aware tonight about what's predicted."

Brett Harrison from the weather bureau says today's outlook for south-east Queensland is almost identical to yesterday.

"There is expected to be more rain areas throughout the day," he said.

"We have seen the rain extending a little bit further inland, particularly getting closer to the south-eastern parts of the Darling Downs, but generally expecting rain areas to continue right along the eastern districts of the south-east coast."

Police have warned a high tide of 2.64 metres around 10:50am (AEST) could cause flooding in parts of Brisbane, such as Newstead.

The state's disaster coordinators will meet on the disaster at 10:00am (AEST). 

Yesterday evacuation centres were opened at Narangba and Deception Bay, north of Brisbane, with about a dozen homes evacuated in Burpengary.

Yesterday three people escaped after their car was stuck on a flooded road in Brisbane's south-west and cars were seen floating on some streets in the inner city.

Thousands of homes were without power yesterday.

Seqwater says it may release water from Somerset and Wivehoe dams today to bring the massive dams, west of Brisbane, back to "full" supply levels.

The releases may increase if there is more heavy rain over the next 24 hours.

Gates have been opened at Leslie Harrison and North Pine Dams, and nine ungated dams across the south east are spilling.