Australia flood crisis deepens

SYDNEY: Australia's flood crisis deepened Saturday with the weather bureau warning of a possible catastrophe in one region, as authorities continued to search for a woman swept away by the deluge.

Heavy rainfall in the eastern states of New South Wales and Queensland have cut off thousands of people, swamping farmland and homes, and prompting rescues from surging floodwaters.

In the inland Queensland town of Charleville authorities are on alert amid fears a temporary levee will collapse as the Warrego River continues to rise.

The weather bureau's Paul Birch told the ABC the situation was "touch and go" as the water will be "rushing in quick over the levee".

"If it does that you find it tends to erode out part of the levee fairly quickly. So then it will just open up the river into town -- it's quite catastrophic," Birch said.

Mayor Mark O'Brien said hundreds of people had been evacuated from their homes but so far Charleville itself was "high and dry".

"We've just got an enormous body of water going down the river, but if this thing passes quickly people can just go straight back to the way they were before," he told the ABC.

In the town of Roma to the east, police were continuing their search for a woman missing since Friday after her vehicle was swept off the side of a road.

"A boy was rescued from the car and a woman got out of the vehicle but rescuers could not keep hold of her," police said in a statement. "The woman was swept away in fast flowing flood waters."

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who just over a year ago was dealing with epic floods that swamped the state, sweeping away entire hamlets and flooding thousands of homes, has asked for military assistance.

In New South Wales, the State Emergency Service said more than 10,000 people were stranded by the floods.

Assistant Commissioner Andrew Edwards said while the rain was easing, the amount of flooding in the region and to the north meant that "we can expect these floods to be going on for months" in some pockets.