BRISBANE, Australia — At least eight people were killed and 72 were missing after the latest downpour in Australia’s flood-wracked Queensland state sent torrents through several towns, washing away cars and houses, officials said Tuesday.

Emergency services officers plucked more than 40 people from houses isolated by the torrent that hit the Lockyer Valley with little warning on Monday, but thunderstorms and more driving rain were keeping helicopters from reaching an unknown number of other people still in danger this morning.

Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh said there were “grave concerns” for at least 11 of the missing.

“Right now we have every possible available resource deployed into this region to search for those people that we know are missing,” Bligh told Australia’s Nine Network. “This is going to be, I think, a very grim day.”

Queensland has been in the grip of its worst flooding for more than two weeks, after tropical downpours left an area the size of France and Germany covered with water. Entire towns have been swamped, with more than 200,000 people affected and the coal and farming industries virtually shut down. Monday’s deaths raised the flood toll since late November to at least 18.

Until Monday, the flood crisis had been unfolding slowly as swollen rivers crested their banks and inundated towns as the floodwaters advanced toward the ocean.

But Monday’s flash flooding struck without warning in Toowoomba, a city of 90,000 nestled in mountains 2,300 feet above sea level. Bligh said a deluge sent a torrent crashing through Toowoomba and smaller towns farther down the valley.

“We had just begun to believe that we might be in a stabilizing situation when Mother Nature has delivered something totally shocking to us in the last 24 hours,” Bligh told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio. “This is an intense and grim situation and it is far from over.”

 

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