At least eight people have been killed, thousands of homes and businesses inundated in flash flooding and approximately 15,000 evacuated in eastern Australia.
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Thousands of homes and businesses in Queensland are underwater and police say several people are still unaccounted for. “I think everyone would agree no one has seen this amount of rain in such a short period of time,” the state premier said.
Parts of Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, remained under water on Monday, with 2,145 homes and 2,356 business submerged and a further 10,827 properties flooded above their floorboards.
Torrential rain has battered the state since last Tuesday, causing the Brisbane River to burst its banks.
A man in his 50s drowned on Monday when he drove into the floodwaters before sunrise in Gold Coast City, south of Brisbane, local police said, taking the death toll to at least eight.
The bodies of the man and his dog were retrieved from the car hours later, officers said.
“I think everyone would agree no one has seen this amount of rain in such a short period of time” in the region, Annastacia Palaszczuk, the premier of Queensland, said.
Emergency services have rescued more than 130 people in the past 24 hours, according to officials, with searches still under way.
A sailor in his 70s is missing after he fell overboard from his boat in the Brisbane River close to the city centre on Saturday.
Crews are still searching for a man from Goodna, west of the city, and another from Esk, to the northwest.
South of the Queensland border, police are also looking for a man after he was heard calling for help in the floodwaters on Sunday in the town of Lismore, New South Wales.
There are evacuation warnings to businesses along the riverfront in Brisbane after a pontoon carrying a crane broke free from its moorings upstream.
According to local officials, the river peaked on Monday at 3.85 metres (12ft 3in) – 61cm (2ft) below the 4.46m (14ft 3in) reached during serious flooding in 2011.
Adrian Schrinner, the Brisbane lord mayor, said the floods are “very different” to 2011, because rainfall pummelled the region for five days before the river peaked, triggering flooding downstream.
Mark Bailey, the state transport minister, said major roads were cut off and that train and ferry services across Brisbane have also been halted.
“We’re going to have localised flooding in a lot of areas for a couple of days yet,” Mr Bailey said.
Lismore is ready for its worst flooding on record, with the city centre flooding on Monday after days of unrelenting rain. Read more from Sky
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