Two feared dead in Gold Coast floods

Two people are feared dead after thousands of people were evacuated from their homes as torrential rain flooded southern Queensland and northern New South Wales yesterday.

Record downfalls were dumped on a country still gripped by the worst drought in a century.

The two people feared dead are thought to have been swept from one of dozens of cars trapped by rapidly rising rivers, and the Gold Coast was paralysed as water ran waist-deep through some of its densest shopping precincts.

Just across the border in New South Wales, 3000 people were forced from their homes in Lismore as the Wilson River, which runs through the heart of the city, threatened to breach its 11m levees.

Coolangatta airport, a key hub for New Zealand visitors, was closed by rising waters, and the Pacific Highway, linking southern Queensland with the rest of eastern Australia, was cut by flooding.

Heavy rain, strong winds and huge seas pounded the coast as far as Victoria, bringing warnings of flash floods in many areas and forcing the cancellation of catamaran ferry services in Sydney.

Further south, the Bureau of Meteorology warned that heavy rain was likely to lash Tasmania, dramatically raising river levels and threatening flash floods in the northeast of the state today.

The deep trough that dumped rain with such violence and whipped up gales took Australia by surprise, even after several weeks of widespread showers that defied earlier expectations of a cruelly dry winter.

But while heavy falls in critical catchment areas have directed water into parched dams, the deluge of 500mm of rain in 24 hours that inundated parts of southern Queensland and northern NSW will still not be sufficient to break the drought.

The brunt of the downfall was borne by the Gold Coast, where the Bureau of Meteorology said up to 400mm had fallen, as great a deluge as the 1974 Brisbane floods that killed 16 people.

So far the toll from the flooding appears to be two, a couple who called desperately for help on their mobile phone before being cut off.

Police and rescuers last night were searching for the unnamed man and woman, feared lost in floodwaters pouring over a causeway at Coomera, on the Gold Coast's northwest.

Police described chaotic scenes as drivers ignored the conditions and were either trapped or involved in dozens of accidents. Even vehicles bringing State Emergency Service crews from Brisbane were cut off and stranded by rising waters.

A man was pulled by front-end loader from waters too strong for rescue craft, and a disabled tourist was rescued after being trapped in a caravan at a Gold Coast holiday park.

The huge Pacific Fair shopping centre at Broadbeach, in the centre of the Gold Coast, was evacuated, surgery at the Gold Coast hospital was postponed because staff could not get to work, theme parks were shut and dozens of events cancelled.

At Lismore, emergency workers were last night nervously watching the rising Wilson River, expected to peak by midnight, threatening to spill over the levee containing its flow through the city centre.

The eastern seaboard was bracing for more, with forecasts of continued heavy rain and warnings of swollen rivers and possible flooding as far south as the Hunter Valley.