You can donate to the flood relief effort at http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html.
H/T to BoingBoing for the link.
Update: The Guardian is reporting at least nine people are dead, with many more missing:
Floodwaters are now heading for Brisbane where the river, which runs through the centre of the city, has broken its banks and police have urged local residents to begin evacuations.
Police described the wall of water that swept through the city of Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, as an “inland instant tsunami”. Cars were tossed like toys down the street, trees uprooted and businesses inundated as the floodwaters tore through the centre of town. Four people including two children were killed.
“Houses were ripped from their stumps. This is unbelievable damage,” said the Toowoomba mayor, Peter Taylor.
From Toowoomba, the water flowed down the Lockyer valley where emergency services plucked more than 40 people from houses isolated by the torrent, which hit with little warning. Thunderstorms and driving rain were keeping helicopters from reaching people still in danger this morning.
Update, the second: My friend and occasional contributor of blogging material Roger Henry is in the Brisbane area and reports on local conditions:
It has been raining all day with a prolonged thunder-storm. West of here it has been raining at an average 6 inches an hour since early this morning. All bets against a major flood are now off. Ipswich looks like it might go underwater. Caboolture, to our north, flooded so fast that residents were fleeing on foot with no clear idea of where to go (Uphill?).
The four-lane highway north is now a 20 mile long parking lot as the cops try to get traffic turned around. That should be fun.
Stocked up on batteries, candles, tinned food and some extra gas cylinders for the little stove. Water is not an issue:-)
We were assured, by experts, that the rain would stop this morning. The opposite seems to have occurred and now they are hoping tomorrow might be fine.
Ooops. Emergency services have just issued a continuing severe weather alert for the next twelve hours.
The problem is not confined to here. Bad weather has spread into
northern New South Wales, and several rivers there are now in flood.Getting very interesting.
