'Horses wrapped around trees': Flood-ravaged farmers plead for help

An estimated 300,000 cattle have been lost at a cost of $300 million to farmers ravaged by floods that followed extended drought.

They are begging for the state and federal governments to focus on saving their communities.

"Heart-wrenching", "soul-destroying" and "beyond comprehension" was how third-generation farmer Tania Curr described the devastation.

"We need intervention like post-[Cyclone] Yasi and other natural disasters," she said.

"It is bad enough we have to see our kids' favourite horses wrapped around trees in floodwaters and our cattle we love and take so much pride in dead in masses due to the horrific conditions.

"Then [we have to] go and get bulldozers to bury them. It is too much for us."

Ms Curr, who owns a property about 180 kilometres north-west of Julia Creek, fears the number of dead cattle could be as high as half a million.

"We just had no idea of the amount of rain that was going to come, we didn’t have time to prepare," she said.

"Even if we did know, there would have been nothing we could have done.

"Julia Creek area is essentially flat, there is no higher ground. It’s a flood."

Ms Curr believed she had lost 8000 cattle, half of her herd.

"Most of the cattle died from exposure - because it was raining for too long they jammed themselves on top of each other trying to get warm and they just couldn’t handle it any more," she said.

"They are traumatised, weak and still dying even though rain is over."

Ms Curr pleaded for governments at state and federal levels to help flooded regional communities.

"We have to save our rural communities and families, we have to look after our own country first, priority number one," she said.

"We can’t play politics, we just have to get the job done. Please, no politics, just save our area."

Interstate road trains carrying hay continue to arrive in north-west Queensland as aviation fuel supplies flown in by the military give a glimmer of hope to farmers.

However, the promised bulk military airdrop of fodder for the surviving cattle has been put on the backburner, nearly a week after it was promised.

Rachael Anderson's western Queensland cattle station is strewn with the bodies of thousands of cattle that died in floodwater a week after sweltering in drought.

But her immediate concern after flood killed half her herd is not the 2000-odd carcasses now rotting in swampy paddocks. It is the banks.

"I can provide for my family right now. But in six months' time or when the bank comes for their repayment, I don't know what I'm going to do, none of us know what we are going to do," Ms Anderson said.

"We can't get loans because we've got nothing to borrow against, none of us have got anything left."

The federal government would provide an immediate ex gratia payment of $1 million to affected shires, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday.

"This payment will be for them to use on priorities they deem most urgent - whether that be rate relief for impacted properties, infrastructure, or the disposal of cattle which have perished," he said.

Meanwhile, the Insurance Council of Australia defended the behaviour of insurers in flood-ravaged Townsville amid complaints they are not paying up.

Both the Queensland Labor government and LNP opposition have called on insurers to ensure they give claimants a fair go.

Deputy Premier Jackie Trad said there had been 14,600 insurance claims worth $175 million lodged in Queensland following the flood.

"For locals, this has been unlike anything experienced before," she said.

"Almost twice London's annual rainfall was dumped on Townsville in less than two weeks."

There have been $5.5 million in emergency hardship payments made, 6800 assessments done with 1800 homes damaged by floods, while 55 schools have reopened.

The North Queensland Floods Appeal has so far raised almost $3.6 million.

- with AAP and Felicity Caldwell