Dread For Those Picking Through The Lockyer Valley

No one is looking forward to this work:

In the Lockyer Valley area west of Brisbane, a flash flood swept through the town of Toowoomba this week, killing at least 14 people and leaving more than 70 missing.

Poor weather has continued to hamper rescue operations there and in other parts of the state.

Police have warned that there are likely to be gruesome finds, and Bligh said the country should brace for disturbing discoveries in the days ahead.

"I don't think anything can prepare any of us for what we might see in the Lockyer Valley," she said in one of a series of news conferences she has been holding every two hours over the last few days.

Queensland police earlier had declined to comment on suggestions that there was a "mass grave" underneath a bridge in the Lockyer Valley town of Grantham, which police have cordoned off as they search for bodies.

"The problem we have is that the people have been washed out of their homes, and some of the homes are actually destroyed, like bombs have gone off there," Ian Stewart, Queensland's deputy police commissioner, told Australian television Thursday. "It's a war scene in the Lockyer Valley today."