Campground ‘turned into island’: five Easter campers rescued near Mount Isa
Overnight flooding has stranded a group of Easter campers in Queensland’s Gulf Country and five of them, mothers and children, have been evacuated by inflatable boat.
Five Queensland campers were rescued by emergency services early on Easter Sunday after a sudden bout of flooding left them stranded.
At around 1:30am on Sunday, five campers – two mothers and three infants – were evacuated from a campsite near the East Leichhardt Dam near Mount Isa in the state’s Gulf Country.
While there were 29 people at the flooded campsite, the five who left required assistance after their food was washed away by the storm.
All those in the area were accounted for, with no reported injuries. The group who did require rescue were taken out on an inflatable boat. The remainder opted to wait until water levels dropped.
The area had no phone reception, but one group were able to contact emergency services uses their phone’s SOS function.
Mount Isa Search and Rescue coordinator Senior Sergeant Jeffrey Magnus urged Queenslanders to check the emergency weather warnings before considering any travel this week.
“The little bit of high ground they were on turned into an island. It’s still an island and most of them are still there just waiting for the waters to recede,” he said to ABC News.
“It could take some time to recede and it really depends on whether there’s any more falls in that area today or tonight.”
Mount Isa had 17.4mm of rainfall between Saturday and Sunday morning. More is expected today. Near East Leichhardt Dam that figure was closer to 33mm and could have been higher considering run-off from the dam.
On Monday, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services confirmed that the remaining 24 campers had not sought emergency assistance and that water levels had receded dramatically in the interim. No further resources had been dispatched in the region.
The East Leichhardt Dam is located 40 kilometres from Mount Isa in the state’s northwest.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland is under flood warnings in its southwest, along Cape York Peninsula, at Eyre Creek, and along many rivers including the Nicholson, Leichhardt, Balonne, Paroo, Thomson, Barcoo, Dawson Herbert, Norman, Gilbert, Tully, Diamantina, Flinders, Cloncurry, Cape, Mulgrave and Russell.
The Mount Isa region has endured almost 150mm of rain in the last week, leaving riverside populations vulnerable.
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