Our Wide Brown Land - part 1

The whole world knows of the bushfires in Victoria [Australia ] but how many know of the massive flooding in Queensland ? [also Australia ] 62% of the state is affected by flooding. Growers of sugar cane, bananas, and table vegetables are suffering as much as the farmers, cattle and sheep producers in Qld's outback. That is the staggering total of 2,355,900 acres. A tremendous amount of water. The Gulf of Carpentaria coastal area is only traversable by boat, no roads left usable, no railways and no air transport except helicopters. All rivers on the northern half of the coast are in flood, whole towns are inundated, in some places floods have been the order of the day for five weeks. So far there has only been seven deaths attributed to floods.
The weather systems which brought rainfalls of up to 400 mm [12 inches ] are now moving away and as the waters recede the clean up commences. Being in the tropics of Aussie there is the ever present danger of crocodiles being anywhere at all. They follow the floodwaters as food is readily provided from drowned domestic stock and wild animals. And snakes, lots of them, all venomous getting away from the water.
Has anyone ever cleaned up after a flood ? Those who have will remember that awful smell of mud, foul stinking muck that is every corner of every house the water enters. Carpets and floor covering cannot be cleaned and become rubbish, to be removed and dumped.Furniture falls apart as the wet timber swell and the glue fails, fridges, washing machines and anything else electrical rendered utterly useless and unrepairable. Clothes, blankets and such soiled so badly by the clay suspended in the mud as to be unwashable. The superfine clay particles get right into the weave of the cloth and cannot be removed readily.
The most irritating, annoying and dangerous consequence of flood waters in a tropical climate is the insects. Millions of them. Mosquitos being the most deadly, because they are the carriers of Malaria and Dengue Fever and Ross River Fever. After floods have started to recede the mozzies multiply exponentially and are soon to be seen in clouds around anything that has fresh blood in it. Humans, cattle, sheep. kangaroos, cats and dogs all suffer from mosquito bites. There is an ever present danger of contracting disease.
Fire burns everything burnable and what's left can be picked up and buried some where out of the way. Floods don't leave a clean mess. They contribute to decay, rot and decomposition of organic materials which add to the foulness of the muck to be cleaned up and removed from homes so the home can be dried out and made livable again. Some homes will have been pushed apart by the sheer weight of the water flowing through them, these then add to the mess to be cleaned up and removed.
What of the farmer ? There are always stock losses and fodder losses, but one of the most frustrating things to fix is fencing. Waters carry leaves and rubbish which catch in the fences, then the weight of the water simply rolls up miles of fencing and dumps it when the weight of the fence full of rubbish becomes too great for the water to move any further.
It may be a few hundred yards or many miles, depending on amount of water, it's speed of movement, and its depth.
Queenslands floods are every bit as great a disaster as the bushfires in Victoria and just as heartbreaking even though the death toll is much less. Both fire and flood bring benefits to the land itself ; fires fertilise the soil with the ash they leave and floods give moisture to subsoil that may last for a year or two.
We humans are but mere pawns in the games that mother nature plays with the land where we live. But live we will, although we must live within the conditions given us by nature, for we are completely powerless to change anything.