Aerial footage shows the extent of the flooding in Queensland
North-eastern Australia’s worst flooding in decades is continuing to cause chaos across the region.
Around 1,000 people in Queensland have been evacuated, including the entire population of the town of Theodore.
The government has declared Theodore and two other towns in the region to be disaster zones, and forecasters say the floods have not yet peaked.
The cost of the damage is expected to top AU$1bn (£650m), including massive losses of sunflower and cotton crops.
Army Black Hawk helicopters are being despatched to help evacuate the 300 residents of Theodore, where every building in the town apart from the police station has been flooded, local media report.
The town’s river has risen more than 50cm (20 in) above its previous recorded high, Emergency Management Queensland spokesman Bruce O’Grady told Australia’s ABC News.
“We’re in unchartered territory in that area,” he said. “The [weather] bureau is indicating it could go higher.”
Inland towns such as Chinchilla and Dalby are all under water; the nearby town of Warra, and the towns of Alpha and Jericho, west of Emerald, have also been declared disaster zones, with hundreds of homes flooded or at risk.
Media reports said Dalby was running low on drinking water supplies after its water treatment plant was damaged by the floods.
A further 200 homes were swamped in Bundaberg on the south-east coast and hundreds of roads in the region have been made impassable.
The state capital, Brisbane, has recorded its wettest December in more than 150 years. Cyclone Tasha, which hit Queensland on Saturday, also brought torrential rain to the state.
Long traffic queues have formed outside isolated towns and police are arresting people who need rescuing after driving into badly hit areas, says the BBC’s Steve Marshall in Sydney.
Further south, in New South Wales, about 175 people who had spent the night in evacuation centres have returned home.
But 800 people in the towns of Urbenville and Bonalbo are expected to be cut off for another 24 hours.
While the rain is now easing, water is continuing to flow from sodden land across central and southern Queensland into already swollen rivers, adds our correspondent.
Australia’s Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts told ABC the worst was yet to come.
“Over the next 48 hours rain will be easing but the real impact in some communities won’t be felt for a couple of days when floodwaters begin to recede,” he said.
“Once the rain finishes there will still be significant flooding impacts over the next few days.”
Farming groups says the floods could cause up to $403m (£261m) in damage to crops, badly hitting an industry which was already suffering the effects of a lengthy drought.
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