Railway bridge feared to be mass grave after Australia flood

Bobbing in the murky, debris-strewn water below the Grantham bridge are up to 30 crumpled cars, violently wedged against the pylons after being washed downstream in the ferocious flash flood that hit the country town on Monday.

But it is the likely contents of those mangled vehicles that has police and emergency workers filled with dread.

"You'd have to think with 30-odd cars here, we're about to find some pretty unpleasant things," a police officer at the scene said yesterday.

Within the once 300-strong community of Grantham there are at least 50 people missing. So far, just three have been confirmed dead. Communication is a struggle, with no power or phone lines. Everyone is resigned to the fact that there will be more dead - and that some will be found under the bridge at Grantham.

The consensus among survivors and rescuers alike is, if you haven't been found by now, you simply couldn't have survived.

As a team of specialist disaster divers arrived by RAAF Black Hawk helicopter yesterday and began entering the swollen river, locals took a breath and prepared for the worst.

"I know there is a body in that white car ... it's a mother my husband couldn't get to," a resident, Karen, said. "He got her daughter off the roof but he couldn't get to the mum."

Karen said she heard a young girl, aged about 15, screaming for help and saw her clinging to the roof of the car amid a ferocious torrent of water.

"My husband ripped the door off the car. He tried to help the woman - but he couldn't," she said.

Another local, Martin Warburton, also knows there are bodies caught beneath the bridge. He saw them there himself, caught in the water.

"I thought they were people swimming, then I realised they were dead," he said. "You saw hands, legs, hair being thrashed about. By the time I got close to the water, I realised they weren't swimming, they were gone."

Read more in The Daily Telegraph...