Flash flooding swept cars into a creek and triggered landslides yesterday as heavy rains lashed Australia’s swamped northeast, prompting sandbagging in Brisbane and renewed evacuations in one town.

Severe downpours deluged already sodden Queensland state, with more than 300 millimetres falling in some places in just 24 hours, swelling overloaded rivers to fresh peaks and submerging roads and bridges.

Several parked cars were swept into a creek in flash flooding at Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, where landslides also hit a major highway, police said.

There were “several unconfirmed reports of possible rescues,” they added, with local media reporting that two women had been swept away in the sudden downpour and a building in the city centre had collapsed. “It only takes 15 centimetres (six inches) of fast flowing water to sweep a person off their feet and into a flooded waterway,” warned rescue chief Lee Johnson.

“It only takes 60 centimetres of floodwater to push a four-wheel-drive (off the road).”

The town of Gympie was cut in two by the surging waters while parts of Dalby, inundated four times already in the crisis, were again under water, forcing traumatised residents to evacuate ahead of another major river peak.

“You want to cry,” Gympie’s Royal Hotel owner Jess Philpott told AAP news agency, as muddy waters sloshed over her floorboards. “It’s going to go up to the roof.”

“Last night we couldn’t see the water from the hotel. This morning it’s inside.”