The 1990 April/May floods in eastern Australia were huge. They covered more than one million square kilometres of Queensland and New South Wales and, in a separate extreme flood, a smaller area of Victoria. The map shows the extent of the floods - an area larger than Germany!
Causes - In central-northern NSW and central-southern QLD, continual heavy rains, partly caused by cyclones, drenched the flat inland plains. Then further torrential rainfalls created almost instant floods. Many, already flooded rivers, were re-flooded a second time raising the floodwater to even higher levels.
Effects - In both States, road and rail links were severed for long periods. Floodwaters invaded towns and many communities and properties were isolated. Graziers faced a grim submergence of entire properties from river overflows, while livestock deaths of up to one million were estimated. Emergency services were stretched to the limit to provide essential rescues, evacuations and food drops.
Nyngan, NSW - The interaction of numerous flooded river systems in northern NSW and southern Qld made flood height prediction difficult. Residents of Nyngan, on the Bogan River, strengthened levee banks in expectation of a record flood height which was eventually exceeded! Almost every building was flooded and 2,500 people were evacuated, mainly by helicopters, under emergency conditions as all town services were lost. Considerable cost and hardship occurred because the town did not have a disaster plan to cope with levee bank failure. Residents could not return to their homes for three weeks, billeted by the people of Dubbo, about 160 km away.
Charleville, Qld - Here, a similar situation occurred several days
earlier when over 80% of the town (of about 3,000 people) was flooded, inundating all
services. The hospital had to be evacuated by boat and a massive air evacuation saw
over 2,000 residents uplifted (mainly by helicopters) to the higher, local airport,
around which a huge ‘tent city’ was established. This accommodated 2,300 residents and
up to 1,000 emergency workers at the height of the disaster and was responsible for
providing over 15,000 meals per day at the peak period.
Damage - In Nyngan and Charleville alone, nearly 2,000 homes were
inundated and in many cases were badly damaged. Although about 40 were beyond repair,
emergency workers and residents cleaned and restored the majority to good condition
after weeks of toil. Most commercial and public buildings were also badly affected and
very heavy retail stock losses were incurred. The same story was repeated, many times
over, in smaller towns and properties in NSW and Qld and at the same time a series of
brief, but violent floods wreaked havoc in the Gippsland region of north-eastern
Victoria, leaving a trail of death and damage.
