MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fears in Australia that hundreds of thousands of cattle could have died in record floods

“We are expecting hundreds of thousands in terms of stock losses,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Sydney.

Hundreds of thousands of cattle weakened from a severe drought are feared to have died in record-breaking floods in northeastern Australia, authorities said on Friday, as they stepped up efforts to feed surviving livestock.

Incessant rains over an almost two-week period have flooded swathes of Queensland state, with the full scale of the devastation on drought-hit cattle stations becoming clearer as floodwaters recede.
“We are expecting hundreds of thousands in terms of stock losses,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Sydney.

“This will be heartbreaking to these communities that have been experiencing years of drought, only to see that turn into a torrential inundation which threatens now their very livelihoods in the complete other direction.”

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Friday spoke of seeing a “sea of dead cattle” when she toured one region on Thursday.

“To see the cattle spread across these yards, not moving, it made you feel sick in the stomach,” she told national broadcaster ABC.

Bales of hay and fuel have been transported into towns near the disaster zones and are being distributed to farmers so they can carry out airdrops to their stock.

About half of Australia's 25-million strong cattle herd is bred in Queensland state, and graziers say the floods - described as a once-a-century event - could devastate their industry.

Australia's tropical north typically experiences heavy rains during the monsoon season, but the recent downpours have seen some areas get a year's worth of rainfall in just a week.