After six years of drought, Mount Isa residents prayed for rain. Then it flooded

For graziers who sweated to keep their herds alive, praying for rain, the scale of the flood is hard to take

" Satellite images before and after the floods reveal devastation

Out the back of Mount Isa, in late January, the locals marked a wry milestone.

For an unbroken stretch of 43 stinking afternoons, the temperature at Cloncurry and Camooweal had topped 40C. The herds of cattle in Queensland's north-west, the ones that had survived through six years of drought, started to show signs of severe heat stress. They became thinner, weaker.