Cyclone Debbie has been wreaking devastation across Australia's north-east coastline this week, slamming locals with severe rains and winds of up to 260 km (160 miles) per hour. Extensive flooding and evacuations are ongoing, and right now, there are no signs of the storm slowing down.

But in the north Queensland region of Burdekin, the residents appear to have gotten off relatively easy, because as local journalist Philip Calder tweeted yesterday, this poor uprooted bull shark is "The only victim of Burdekin flooding."

"He must've gotten caught in a torrent and confused, beached himself on the side of the road," Calder told news.com.au.

"We were pretty amazed, we were turning up to shoot a flooding road, we weren't expecting to see wildlife as well."

Bull sharks are fairly common in the area, and are an incredibly adaptable species - found all over the world, they thrive in both saltwater and freshwater, keeping to the warm, shallow waters of the coast, or the rivers further inland. 

As Calder told The Brisbane Times, it's suspected that this bull shark had been washed up out of its home in the Burdekin River, and in the process of trying to escape a raging torrent, found itself beached on a road in the town of Ayr.

Showing no signs of decomposition, the shark likely wasn't sitting there for long before it was found. Unfortunately, there was no chance of reviving it once the local emergency crew had arrived.

As tough as sharks are in the water, they are incredibly sensitive to drying out and suffocating when there isn't a constant supply of water flowing through their gills. 

That's the biggest risk researchers face when they try to transport one from its natural habitat, and one of the many reasons why no one has ever successfully kept a shark in captivity for more than a few months.

Calder says the shark likely came from the Burdekin River, which is "full of bull sharks".

The locals? "They never go swimming in it."

Senior firefighter Ash Ryder from the Ayr Fire and Rescue station told The Courier Mail that the Burdekin River had very quickly reached a peak of 9.5 metres on Wednesday, after rising 5 metres in the space of just 5 hours.

An actual shark isn't the only strange thing that has been uprooted by the massive storms sweeping the Australian coast this week - entire boats have been flung inland from the sea.

And the destruction to several electrical towers has made for some rather peculiar viewing:

The good news is no deaths have been reported as a result of the storm so far, despite the fact that it's reportedly the worst in the region since 2011.