10 killed and dozens missing as floods move towards Brisbane

MILITARY helicopters are searching for scores of people missing after a wall of water ripped through an Australian valley, tossing cars around like toys in the deadliest episode of the flood crisis.

• Riverside businesses at Eagle Street Pier alongside the Brisbane River brace for major flooding. Picture: Getty Images

At least 10 people were killed and 78 are still unaccounted for almost 24 hours after the flash flood hurled millions of gallons of water down Queensland's Lockyer Valley yesterday, state premier Anna Bligh said.

Authorities have grave fears for at least 18 of the missing.

The valley funnelled rain from a freak storm - up to 6in fell in half an hour near Toowoomba city - into a stream that formed a path of destruction, lifting houses from foundations.

The torrent slowed and spread out as it moved downstream toward the state capital of Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city with two million people.

The Brisbane River overflowed its banks today and officials warned that thousands of houses in dozens of low-lying neighbourhoods and parts of downtown could be inundated.

Residents queued for up to four hours outside emergency services depots to get sandbags to try to protect their homes, and shoppers stocked up on bottled water, milk and fuel. Residents in at least three suburbs were asked to prepare their homes, then go and stay with friends or family on higher ground.

"This is a truly dire set of circumstances for the people of Queensland, with more flooding to come," prime minister Julia Gillard told Australian Broadcasting Corp television. She said she had been "absolutely shocked" by television footage of the flash flood.

The violent surge near Toowoomba escalated Australia's flood crisis in Queensland state and brought the overall death toll to 20. Until then, the flooding had unfolded slowly as swollen rivers burst their banks and inundated towns while moving downstream toward the ocean.

Emergency services plucked more than 40 people from houses isolated overnight by the torrent that hit the Lockyer Valley, and thousands moved out or were being evacuated. In one small community, Forest Hill, the entire population of about 300 was airlifted to safety in military helicopters, Ms Bligh said.

The search and rescue effort was hampered by thunderstorms and more driving rain, though the bad weather eased during the day and Ms Bligh said the search would get easier on Wednesday.

She added that about 9,000 homes in Brisbane could be badly affected, and tens of thousands more could have floodwaters enter their gardens and yards. The flood peak is expected on Thursday, when parts of downtown are expected to be awash.

The city is protected by a large dam built upstream after floods devastated downtown in 1974, but the reservoir was full and officials had no choice but to release water that would cause low-level flooding in the city, Mayor Campbell Newman said. The alternative was a much worse torrent.

Ms Bligh said five children were among those killed and that many of those still stranded or unaccounted for are families and young children.