Weeks of flooding in Australia—including, on Monday, a tsunami-like flash flood that killed at least nine people—have the rest of the world watching with sympathy and with some awe at the sheer size of the areas affected. News reports at various times have compared the flooded areas to something those in other parts of the world can relate to more easily: “the size of Texas,” “the size of Egypt,” or “the size of France and Germany combined.”
On Monday, six inches of rain fell in about half an hour in an area west of Brisbane. People and cars were washed away and houses lifted from their foundations by a 26-foot-high wall of water in the town of Toowoomba, which has about 90,000 people. The water slowed and dissipated somewhat before reaching Brisbane, which has a population of about two million. The Brisbane River is overflowing and threatening to flood low-lying areas, as has happened in other parts of the country in recent weeks.
A dam was built to protect Brisbane after floods in the early 1970s, but the reservoir behind the dam has filled and water is slowly being released, even at the risk of flooding some areas, to avoid a more violent and destructive flow.