Breaking News English

The Australian state of Queensland is an uphill struggle to recover from its flood. It could take years before things are back to . Large areas of the state are still under water. Thousands of homes have been and many people are now without a roof over their heads. Many more homes are without power and people are on food and water handouts. State Premier Anna Bligh told reporters the flood is the natural disaster in Queensland’s history and that reconstruction would be of "-war proportions". She said: "Queensland is this morning from the worst natural disaster in our history and possibly in the history of our ….We've seen three-quarters of our state having experienced the devastation of flood waters.”

One good piece of news to from the flood is that the flood waters weren’t as high as . The water peaked at 4.46m, below the 5.4m of the 1974 floods. Nevertheless, around 30 Brisbane now look like giant lagoons. There is a huge amount of in the water, ranging from the entire walkway that lined Brisbane’s business waterfront, to a floating restaurant smashed to after crashing into a bridge. So far, the reported death is 15, but dozens more people are . Brisbane’s mayor Campbell Newman warned residents it would take a long time to return to . He said: "The clean-up effort, ultimately, will take many, many months…The reconstruction on people's homes is going to take much longer.”