DEADLY floodwaters have finally begun to recede from the devastated streets of Australia’s third-largest city.

But the aftermath could take months if not years to put right.

And a former Huddersfield man has witnessed at first hand the devastation wreaked by the terrible weather.

Ian Walton, 35, who is from Skelmanthorpe, lives just 2km from the centre of Brisbane.

He has watched whole swathes of the city engulfed by the filthy waters of the Brisbane River as it burst its banks.

Streets and housing estates have been submerged under several feet of water.

And Mr Walton described the scene “like something out of Armageddon”.

He lives in the West End area of Brisbane and just a couple of hundred metres from the edge of the floods.

“It’s now a half-mile wide river that looks as if it is a rapids.

“The force of the water has been terrible to see.

“We heard today that one man has died when he was swept away into a storm drain but amazingly, there have been fewer fatalities here, unlike other parts of Australia.

“I helped the people at Albies, my regular coffee shop, try and save the business. We carried out everything that we could and moved it to higher ground, but many homes and shops have been devastated.

“It’s like Armageddon in whole parts of the city.

“Bizarrely, we have had two days of really good weather but the river kept on rising. We did fear it would get even worse but it seems to have stayed at the level it reached in the morning.

“People have done what they can to save their homes and businesses but there is a lot of destruction. It is going to take months if not years to clean up what has been left behind by the floods”.

Mr Walton, who emigrated to Australia 10 years ago, works in the country’s mining industry as a metallurgist.

He previously lived in Melbourne and left that city just before the terrible bush fires which ravaged through the whole area.

“I celebrated my 10th anniversary out here on January 3 and have never seen anything like we have had to go through this past few days.

“I plan to move on to Spain in the spring to take some time out in the Pyrenees but I love Australia”.

Mr Walton’s parents Stuart and Sandra, live in Skelmanthorpe and spent hours on the computer and on mobile phones trying to reassure themselves he was okay.

Mr Stuart Walton said: “We managed to get through to him and he is okay, but it has been very worrying”.

The family lived in Rawthorpe and in Highburton before moving to Skelmanthorpe.

One man died in Brisbane after being sucked into a storm drain by the muddy waters, said Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh.

The discovery, plus two other bodies found earlier, brought the death toll to 25 since late November.

“Queensland is reeling this morning from the worst natural disaster in our history and possibly in the history of our nation,” said an emotional Bligh.

“We’ve seen three-quarters of our state having experienced the devastation of raging floodwaters and we now face a reconstruction task of post-war proportions.”

Officials told evacuated Brisbane residents it would be days before they could return to some of the 30,000 inundated homes and businesses – though many of them will never be habitable again.

The flooding across Queensland has submerged dozens of towns – some three times – and left an area the size of Germany and France combined under water.

Roads and rail lines have been washed away in the disaster, which is shaping up to be Australia’s costliest. Damage estimates were already at £3.1bn before the floods swamped Brisbane.

At least 61 people are still missing, and the death toll is expected to rise.

Many of those unaccounted for disappeared from around Toowoomba, a city west of Brisbane that saw massive flash floods on Monday sweep away cars, road signs and people.

Fourteen died in that flood alone.

Deputy Police Commissioner Ian Stewart warned that number was likely to rise as search and rescue teams accessed more devastated areas.

“We’ve got to brace ourselves for more bad news,” Stewart said.

In one spot of bright news, the swollen Brisbane River’s peak was about three feet lower than predicted, at a depth slightly below that of 1974 floods that swept the city.

Waters in some areas had reached the tops of roofs, shut down roads and power, and devastated entire neighbourhoods.

Mayor Campbell Newman said 11,900 homes and 2,500 businesses had been completely inundated, with another 14,700 houses and 2,500 businesses at least partially covered in water.