Page:The British Empire in the nineteenth century Volume VI.djvu/212

The chief event in the recent history of Queensland was the disaster due to floods in the south-eastern part of the colony, which occurred in the early days of February, 1893. Nothing in the history of Australia ever equalled, in this kind, the mischief wrought in the valleys of the Brisbane and Bremer rivers through a downpour of which dwellers in the British Isles can form slight conception. For seven days and nights, without intermission, the rain came down in sheets that quickly filled every gully, whence torrents rushed to swell the water-courses and so send a deluge over the land. The towns of Gympie and Maryborough, respec-
tively 116 and 170 miles north of Brisbane, suffered severely. Ipswich, 23 miles west of the capital, was badly flooded. The country around Toowoomba, on the Darling Downs, about 80 miles further west than Ipswich, presented a scene of utter desola-
tion. The most severe loss was incurred at Brisbane, where the river rose nearly 10 feet higher than during the calamitous floods of January, 1890, and, covering the low-lying suburb of working-
class people, in the district called Fortitude Valley, to the depth of 50 feet, demolished several factories, and above 500 houses, which were there chiefly built of the native hard woods, with shingle roofs, the structures being raised on short trunks of timber, metal-capped, in order to preserve them from the ravages of "white ants". Around three, and sometimes four, sides of the house a verandah runs, wide enough to serve as a place for meals in the hot season. Such buildings could offer no resistance to so mighty a flood, and were forthwith swept away with serious loss of life. Some of the chief thoroughfares of the city proper, on higher ground, were flooded. Six miles above the capital, the railway-bridge spanning the Brisbane at Indooroopilly fell with a thunderous roar, and its piers and girders were swept away. The crowning mischief came when communication between North and South Brisbane was cut off by the demolition of the massive and magnificent Victoria Bridge, an iron swing structure on the lattice-girder principle, 1080 feet long, which took over nine years in building at a cost of a quarter of a million sterling. The scene at this point was one of terrible interest for many hours before the event. Above a hundred houses and great sheds, between the afternoon of Saturday, February 4th, and Sunday night, were borne down upon the bridge and crushed to pieces. In one case,