 Major portions of Brisbane resembled a watery ghost town Thursday as muddy waters from the overflowing Brisbane River inundated Australia's third-largest city, part of massive flooding throughout Queensland state that has left officials and residents reeling.In Brisbane, a city of 2 million, 11,900 homes and 2,500 businesses were completely flooded, an additional 14,700 houses and 2,500 businesses were at least partly covered by water, and 120,000 houses were without power, Mayor Campbell Newman said. "The problem we have is that the people have been washed out of their homes, and some of the homes are actually destroyed, like bombs have gone off there," Ian Stewart, Queensland's deputy police commissioner, told Australian television Thursday.
– Australia’s vast floods shut down the center of Brisbane today, sending thousands fleeing and others to stores in a panicked rush of food hoarding. Rescuers, meanwhile, combed the area for 43 people who have gone missing. Brisbane is the country’s third-largest city, home to 2 million people. Floodwaters are expected to peak before sunrise tomorrow, inundating roughly 20,000 homes and thousands of other buildings, the LA Times reports. “We are in the grip of a very serious natural disaster,” the premier of Queensland tells Reuters. “Brisbane will go to sleep tonight and wake up to scenes many will never have seen before in their lives.” At least 12 people died yesterday when flash floods shot through the town of Toowoomba. “Suddenly (26 feet) of water just came up and went right through the central drain,” said one woman. “It just knocked cars around like little matchboxes in a bath—was just terrifying.”