A woman has died and thousands of people have been urged to move to higher ground due to major flooding in northern Australia.
Torrential rains have hammered the state of Queensland over the past three days – with residents warned the floodwaters may “pose a threat to life and property”.
The rainfall has also left around 10,000 homes without power, according to reports in Australia.
The flooding in Queensland was triggered by heavy rain from a low pressure system rich in tropical moisture, Australia’s weather forecaster, the Bureau of Meteorology, said.
More than 47 inches of rain has been dumped on the town of Ingham and the city of Townsville over the past three days, Nine News reports.
Matt Collopy, from the Bureau of Meteorology, told Australian media there has been “record-breaking rainfall in many locations”, without specifying where.
Emergency alerts have been issued for several areas in and around Townsville, while the Bureau of Meteorology said major flood warnings were in place around multiple rivers near the coast of Queensland on Monday morning.
It came after a woman died in Ingham on Sunday after a State Emergency Service boat she was travelling in flipped over, according to Australian media.
Emergency responders carried out 11 water rescues overnight and hundreds of people were taken to evacuation centres.
On Sunday, regional emergency management authorities told people in affected low-lying areas to “collect their evacuation kit and move to a safe place on higher ground”.
Hinchinbrook Shire, a coastal area home to around 11,000 people in the north of the state, is one of the areas experiencing major flooding, Queensland authorities said.
Meanwhile, residents have been warned to be wary of crocodiles that could be lurking in the floodwaters.
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Mr Crisafulli told ABC News in Australia on Monday that the state had faced rainfall of “monsoonal proportions”.
He added: “We’re talking about communities that in a two-day window have received over a metre of water.
“It’s quite frankly incredible… some of the images that we’re seeing on the ground of bridges ripped in two, of business inundated… there will be damage to agriculture.”
Mr Collopy said: “This is a significant and protracted weather event that we’re seeing with record-breaking rainfall in many locations. That rainfall is expected to ease over the next 24 hours and as you move into Tuesday, Wednesday, that easing trend continues.
“But there is a lot of water in those catchments. There’s already an incredible amount of water on the ground. There is more significant rain to come, so it will take days for that water to come out of those systems.”
North Queensland is home to large zinc reserves as well as major deposits of silver, lead, copper and iron ore, with Townsville a major processing centre for the region’s base metals.
In 2019, severe floods in the area disrupted lead and zinc concentrate rail shipments and damaged thousands of properties.
Frequent flooding has hit Australia’s east in recent years including “once in a century” floods that inundated Queensland’s neighbouring Northern Territory in January 2023 during a multi-year La Nina weather event.
