‘Exemplary effort’ by emergency responders

2 months ago The News Room

A flooding emergency across Queensland and the Northern Territory has turned deadly after two bodies were found in an inundated vehicle during a search for missing backpackers near Kilkivan in Queensland’s Gympie region.

The two backpackers were on their way to do fruit picking when their car drove off a bridge into floodwaters. The backpackers — a 26-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman — left Brisbane on Sunday for the four-hour drive to the North Burnett region.

The first flood-related deaths in the rain-hit region have devastated the community of Gympie, where the bodies were found, local mayor Glen Hartwig said.

“It’s a tragedy, these people have come to enjoy our country, see the wide open spaces and they’ve lost their lives in really tragic circumstances”, he said.

In the NT, a remarkable helicopter rescue was caught on camera as a police officer in a private helicopter pulled a stranded driver, passenger and their dog to safety from crocodile-inhabited waters on Wednesday.