国际英语新闻：Australia's Queensland Premier warns more grave news on flood

Brisbane, Australia, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- Residents should be ready for more grave news to come in the upcoming days, as flood water level is due to hit record high later this week, warned Anna Bligh, Premier of the inundated Queensland state of Australia on Wednesday.

Very sad news overnight with further missing notifications made to the Queensland Police and the number they are searching is over 90, Bligh said at a press conference co-hosted by visiting Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

She noted that the death toll is bound to rise as the rescue teams continue to search for bodies in some of isolated areas like Lockyer Valley.

A couple walks past a flooded apartment building in the Brisbane suburb of West End January 12, 2011.

As to Brisbane and Ipswich, the Premier said that flood water had risen to 18.9 meters at 07:30 a.m. local time in Ipswich to the west of Brisbane. She noted that the expected peak was made at 20.5 meters, compared with the 20.7 meters of flood peak in 1974. "I stress that in making those 1974 comparisons, both the city of Ipswich and the city of Brisbane are vastly different places than they were in 1974,"Bligh said, noting that many more people are expected to be affected by this event.

She said that the authorities expected that the flood peak would inundate and affect 4,000 properties in Ipswich, 1,500 are currently affected by floodwaters.

Gillard promised that the authorities will try all the best to ensure that there will be more C-130 aircrafts as well as helicopters available to help in flood-isolated regions.

The commonwealth had made 10,000 emergency payments worth 17 million Australian dollars to flood victims, the Prime Minister said.

For weeks, two thirds of the Queensland state has been affected by flooding, stretching from Rockhampton in the north, west to the southern township of St George and across the state border to northeast NSW. Some economists believed that the disaster may cost the economy 20 billion Australian dollars through lost productivity and damage to homes and key infrastructure.

The federal government is expected to cover between 50 and 75 percent of the flood costs, which could dampen Labor's goals to have the budget returned to surplus by 2013 and exacerbate inflation.