Massive TSUNAMI hits Queensland’s Gold Coast: Japanese tourists blamed and beaten up

A passenger in a joy-ride aeroplane headed for Coolangatta Airport snapped this dramatic photo of the Gold Coast on her mobile phone just as the tsunami struck.

Australia’s coast from Rockhampton to Sydney has been wiped out by a massive tsunami which struck at 9.11 am this morning.

Even the most experienced surfers came ashore before the wave struck Bondi Beach this morning. People in Sydney Tower could see the giant wave coming for several minutes, and did their best to telephone warnings to beach-goers. There has been recent criticism of the efficiency of australia’s tsunami warning system.

This afternoon, most of the Gold Coast is still missing-in-action, and a large quantity of beach sand has been washed inland past Beenleigh, which has now become the New Surfers Paradise. Surfers immediately tested the waves there but declared it was “still a little choppy... too soon to tell”. Many suburbs of Brisbane have been submerged.

(If you don’t believe such flooding is possible, check out this NASA-Google interactive Global Warming satellite map of Queensland’s south coast. When the link opens, select “14 metres” in the "Sea Level Rise" drop-down menu, then watch in trepidation which areas get flooded. Have your water-wings ready - let's hope we don't get a tsunami and Global Warming and a high tide on the same day.
PS: the home page of Global Warming Floodmaps is among the links located in the right-hand margin of this blog.)

Japanese tourists laugh as they flee the wave at Tewantin, but the tsunami turned out not to be a routine promotional stunt by the Tourism Authority.

Ethnic gangs of australian youths went on a drunken rampage, beating up Japanese tourists and blaming them for inventing the word “tsunami”.

“It’s their fault”, claimed one young surfer. “Why do them bloody nips have to cause disasters like this in our peaceful country”. A young Japanese man has been hospitalised after being hit with an australian flag(pole) after deliberately thrusting his own head violently against a broken beer bottle.

This cruise ship was washed inland past Beenleigh.