Locals and authorities join forces to help with painstaking clean up in western Queensland

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The painstaking clean-up is continuing in flood-stricken western Queensland with authorities and locals pitching in to help each-other through the disaster.

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00:00Thick red silt washed through homes, staining everything the water touched.

00:09In Vargaminda, once prized possessions lie strewn across front yards.

00:14It doesn't matter where we look, everybody's whole life is out on the footpath.

00:19Peggy Ferguson and her husband John's home caught alight last year.

00:24Much of what they managed to say from that disaster was taken in this one.

00:29Really the only thing that's salvageable is anything that's about a metre above the floor level.

00:35The whole town is suffering.

00:37We all know each other so well, we've grown up together, we've lived together forever and you know that's all they have.

00:43In flood affected communities, despair is creeping in.

00:47You don't know where to start. It never went to my house. If I had gone to my house I would have gone. I couldn't have handled that.

00:53Actually it gets to me a little bit when you see those older fellas just saying I don't know where to go, I don't know what to do.

00:59Strangers and neighbours are doing their bit to help each other.

01:03All the locals are pitched in, all the peoples off the farms have come in to help these people.

01:07They've got plenty to do themselves but that's a community eh?

01:11Flood recovery is in full swing. It's certainly not business as usual in western Queensland.

01:17Some roads like the one behind me are still cut.

01:20This is the main entrance to Thargaminda and the Bulu River is flowing over it.

01:26Flood truck will be used to ferry supplies into the town but access might not be possible for a week.

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