(CNN) -- Australia's northeastern state of Queensland begins
2011 facing historic river flooding along many coastal rivers,
namely the Fitzroy River near the city of Rockhampton. In
Rockhampton, the river is expected to reach its crest on
Wednesday at a height exceeded only once in recorded history,
back in January 1918. The landmark floods, which have affected
at least 200,000 people and spanned an area approximately the
size of France and Germany, according to the Australian Bureau
of Meteorology, are the result of extremely heavy rains which
occurred at the end of 2010. Many locations along the central
coast of Queensland saw rainfall amounts during the month of
December top 800mm (31.5 inches), which amounted to 400 percent
of their average for the month. Much of this rainfall came from
Cyclone Tasha, which made landfall in eastern Queensland on
Christmas morning. Queenslanders cannot simply point to Tasha's
torrential rainfalls as the sole cause of their current water-
logged nightmare, however, as rivers