STRONG GUSTS AND torrential rain have blacked out more than a quarter of a million properties and swamped parts of Australia’s east coast.

One person has died and a dozen troops have been injured in a category 2 tropical cyclone, which had battered a 400-kilometre stretch of coastline.

Although Storm Alfred weakened into a tropical depression before making landfall on yesterday evening, the damage cause has been extreme.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain without power today and Video images show knee-high water pouring through roads in some of the worst-hit areas.

A total of 23 centimetres (nine inches) of rain descended on the Queensland resort of Hervey Bay in just a few hours.

A yacht sits washed ashore in the Broadwater at Labrador following cyclone Alfred on the Gold Coast. PA PA

Homes have been flooded and emergency services were forces to rescue those trapped in rapid waters, the state’s premier, David Crisafulli, told a news conference.

The weather system “continues to pack a punch” as it moves inland, Crisafulli said, adding that more than 1,000 schools shuttered across the state would gradually start reopening on Monday.

Utility companies said about 268,000 homes and businesses in southeast Queensland and another 12,500 in northeast New South Wales were still without power on Sunday afternoon.

“Customers need to be prepared to be without power for several days,” Queensland’s Essential Energy said.

- © AFP 2025