Townsville flooding forces hundreds to evacuate, leaves police clinging to trees after dam gates fully opened

Updated

Authorities warn the worst is not over as another rain band descends on Townsville with hundreds of residents evacuated and thousands of homes inundated by floodwaters.

Two police officers were also caught in floodwaters after floodgates to the city's dam were fully opened on Sunday night.

Key points: QFES and SES received more than 1,000 calls for assistance overnight

The dam level is slowly falling, recorded at 217 per cent capacity at 6:00pm on Monday

Almost 1,000 Townsville residents have taken shelter in the city's evacuation centres

The officers were helping to evacuate people in Hermit Park when they themselves became trapped by rapidly rising floodwaters.

Their police vehicle was washed away and they were left clinging to trees for about half an hour before a swift water rescue crew arrived.

Crews also rescued two people trapped on the roof of their car in nearby Hyde Park.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) Commissioner Katarina Carroll said authorities had conducted 18 swift water rescues and assisted with 1,100 relocations within 24 hours.

You can read back over today’s flood crisis as it happened in our blog.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said several thousand homes may have been inundated but a damage assessment to determine the exact number was yet to be conducted.

"There are major flood warnings for the Flinders, Cloncurry River, the Leichhardt River, the Horton River, the Ross River and the upper Burdekin Dam," she said.

"We also have a number of isolated communities Normanton, Coorumba, Doomadgee, McKinlay and Julia Creek.

"There is still heavy rainfall across this area, this monsoonal trough just doesn't seem to want to move much at all."

SES Regional Manager Daryl Camp said the workload continued to be demanding with flood boats and helicopters being used to evacuate people.

"We're now getting more requests all morning for people to be evacuated," he said.

"It's a very long process unfortunately to move so many people."

Approximately 1,000 people have taken shelter at evacuation centres.

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Water levels rise in Townsville (ABC News)

The emergency shelter at Cranbrook is at capacity but a sixth shelter located at Walker Street has been set up to provide another 50 beds.

The opening of the floodgates at Townsville's Ross River Dam has been releasing 1,900 cubic metres of water per second.

The dam level is slowly falling, recorded at 217 per cent capacity at 6:00pm on Monday, down from a peak of 244.8 per cent at 2:00am.

Residents are being urged to conserve water as the flooding has caused a number of pipes to burst and put pressure on the Douglas Treatment Plant.

'Very, very long couple of days'

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill said hundreds of local residents had fled their homes and were now sheltering in evacuation centres.

"What we've seen overnight, the amount of water coming down, has affected obviously the suburbs we predicted," Cr Hill said.

"We want people just to stay safe … we've given all the warnings we can to the community. This is going to be a very, very long couple of days."

Rain eases, but more on radar

There was some relief on Sunday night with rainfall in Townsville not as heavy as forecast, but further heavy rainfall has continued throughout Monday.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) recorded between 300mm and 400mm in the Ross River catchment and between 150mm to 200mm around Townsville in the 24 hours to 9:00am on Monday morning.

The bureau also warned of the possibility of water spouts and tornadoes developing along the coast between Ayr and Mackay.

BOM senior forecaster Jonty Hall said the monsoon trough that was bringing the rain was expected to move further south.

"That will bring areas like the Central Coast, Mackay, Whitsundays into the equation," he said.

"If that were to occur that would lead to some easing through the Townsville area which would certainly be good news, but we'll have to wait to see if that occurs."

All schools in the Townsville area remained closed on Monday and may also be closed on Tuesday.

The Townsville Airport reopened on Monday afternoon after being closed on Sunday night.

Topics: rainfall, weather, floods, disasters-and-accidents, emergency-incidents, emergency-planning, townsville-4810, mount-isa-4825, qld, australia, ingham-4850, mackay-4740, innisfail-4860, cairns-4870, brisbane-4000, cardwell-4849

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