According to official figures, at least ten people have died in wild weather in the eastern Australian states of Queensland and Victoria
December 26, 2023, 11:18 p.m. ET
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BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Wild weather has killed at least 10 people in the eastern Australian states of Queensland and Victoria, officials said Wednesday.
Three men aged 48, 59 and 69 were killed after a boat with 11 people on board capsized in rough weather in Moreton Bay off Queensland's south coast on Tuesday, police said. Ambulances took eight survivors to hospital in stable conditions.
The men were aboard the 39-foot pleasure craft on an annual fishing trip, The Courier Mail newspaper reported.
Acting Queensland Police Commissioner Andrew Pilotto said those rescued were lucky to survive.
“The storm was still raging when they were rescued,” Pilotto said. “It would have been very difficult to survive anywhere under these conditions.”
Elsewhere, a 59-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree in the Queensland city of Gold Coast on Monday evening. The body of a 9-year-old girl was found in the neighboring city of Brisbane on Tuesday, hours after she disappeared in a flooded storm drain.
The bodies of a 40-year-old woman and a 46-year-old woman were found in the Mary River in the Queensland town of Gympie. They were among three women who were swept into the flooded river by a storm drain on Tuesday. Another 46-year-old woman was rescued.
Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll blamed “extraordinarily difficult weather” for the tragedies.
“It was a very tragic 24 hours because of the weather,” Carroll told reporters.
Severe weather has hit parts of southeast Australia since Monday, including Queensland and Victoria.
A woman, who has not yet been identified, was found dead late on Tuesday after flash flooding receded at a campsite in Buchan, regional Victoria. The body of an unidentified man who had been camping with the woman was found late Wednesday, police said.
Also on Tuesday, a 44-year-old man was killed by a falling tree branch at his rural property in Caringal, eastern Victoria.
Thunderstorms and strong winds have brought down more than 1,000 power lines in parts of Queensland, leaving 85,000 people without power.