Communities in southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales (NSW) were beginning the clean-up on Sunday after the storm caused widespread flooding and knocked down power lines and trees.

A 61-year-old man’s body was recovered from floodwaters on Saturday, while in a separate incident, 12 soldiers were taken to hospital after their convoy crashed en route to rescue operations.

The storm had weakened by the time it made landfall near Brisbane on Saturday night, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday warned locals of the continued wild weather and risks from flooding.

“The situation in Queensland and northern New South Wales remains very serious due to flash flooding and heavy winds,” Albanese said.

“Heavy rainfall, damaging wind gusts and coastal surf impacts are expected to continue over coming days.”

Cyclone Alfred had hovered for days off the country’s east coast as a category two cyclone before weakening into a tropical depression on Saturday.

By Sunday evening, emergency services had conducted over a dozen rescues in Queensland and NSW – most involving people trapped by rising waters in their cars or homes. The NSW State Emergency Service reported receiving more than 6,000 calls for help.

Almost 290,000 properties in the affected regions remain without power, and energy companies have warned residents the blackouts could persist for days.

Police said on Saturday they had discovered a body in the search for a 61-year-old man who went missing on Friday after his car was caught in floodwaters in Dorrigo, northern NSW.

Emergency responders witnessed the man escaping his car and climbing onto a tree near the riverbank, but rescuers were not able to reach him before he was swept away.

In a separate incident on Saturday, 12 soldiers were injured in a convoy crash in Lismore, about 200km south of Brisbane, as they were on their way to rescue and recovery efforts.

The soldiers were still in hospital on Sunday, two of them in a serious condition, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told a news conference.

“We wish a speedy recovery for all of those young soldiers,” he said.

Queensland’s police authorities said they had not recorded any fatalities or missing people in the state so far as a result of the weather event.

Police said the 82-year-old woman’s body was found in a cane paddock in Queensland on Tuesday, two days after a 63-year-old woman died when a dinghy she was in overturned during a rescue attempt.

The region has been inundated since Saturday, with parts of northern Queensland seeing nearly 2m (6.5 ft) of rain.

By Tuesday, conditions were starting to ease – although Queensland Premier David Crisafulli warned it was still “a disaster that’s going to test the resolve of people” during an interview with broadcaster ABC.

He described the devastation as “incredible”, but noted weather conditions had been “really kind” in recent hours. Thousands had begun to return to their homes.

In Townsville, locals woke on Tuesday to grey skies and drizzle, and the news that predicted flooding levels had not materialised there. It was a stark contrast to the intense downpours which have battered the region over the past few days.

“We believe that the danger has passed,” Townsville Local Disaster Management Group chair Andrew Robinson told reporters.

Pointing to earlier forecasts which had suggested up to 2,000 Townsville homes could have faced flood risks, Crisafulli said that “the city had dodged a bullet”.

Local resident Jo Berry told the BBC she and her family were among those returning home on Tuesday, after spending a sleepless night monitoring the rainfall.

“People talk about PTSD when it rains here and I totally understand,” says Ms Berry, formerly from Leicester in the UK.

“We’ve been in the house here for over 20 years, and have been through a few cyclone events and the 2019 flooding so it is not our first rodeo,” she adds, referring to a flooding disaster which caused A$1.24bn (£620m; $770m) in damages.

On Monday night, other local residents told the BBC they were “on a knife edge” as they waited to see whether their houses would survive.

But further north in the state, power outages and damaged roads have made it difficult to assess the full extent of the destruction in towns such as Ingham and Cardwell.

Crisafulli said early reports suggested the damage was “quite frankly incredible” and that Ingham, which is almost entirely without electricity, “remains the biggest challenge”.

“There are people who have been inundated at home, in their businesses and in their farms,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Footage published in local media showed long lines at the town’s supermarket as people waited for critical supplies. Crisafulli said that amid the blackout the local hospital was operating as normal, and a petrol station was open.

The flooding has caused damage to the area’s homes, crops and coastline, local MP Nick Dametto said in a video posted online.

“The inundation is something that I have never seen before,” he said.

Home to fewer than 5,000 people, Ingham was already reeling after the 63-year-old woman died when a State Emergency Service (SES) dinghy capsized during a rescue attempt on Sunday.

The second woman’s body was found on Tuesday just north of Ingham after a neighbour raised the alarm. She was last seen on Monday night in a house, Queensland Police said in a statement.

More than 8,000 properties remain without power across northern Queensland, according to the state’s energy provider, and the partial collapse of a critical highway continues to hinder efforts to assist some of the hardest-hit areas.

Crisafulli said the recovery effort would “take some time” and that the priority in the coming hours would be to work with the army to get power generators to isolated communities and “bring them back online”.

He added that federal funding would help reconstruct the battered Bruce Highway – the state’s main thoroughfare which stretches 1,673km (1,039 miles) from the south.

Located in the tropics, northern Queensland is vulnerable to destructive cyclones, storms, and flooding.

Speaking to the BBC in Townsville, Scott Heron, a local resident and climate expert, said the latest disaster was not unexpected.

“For a long time, climate scientists have been clear that extreme weather events will become more extreme, and we are seeing that,” said Prof Heron , who works at James Cook University and is the Unesco Chair on Climate Vulnerability of Heritage.

Prof Heron urged politicians to consider this as they planned recovery and rebuilding efforts, such as to the Bruce Highway.

It would be “wasting public money” if infrastructure planning, particularly for long-term projects including roads and bridges, did not “incorporate changing threats due to climate change”, he said.

The flooding has claimed a woman’s life and caused havoc across the state’s north, with residents in Townsville, Ingham, and Cardwell among the hardest hit.

“Record” downpours are set to continue, authorities say, with parts of the region already experiencing almost 1.3m (4.2ft) of rain since Saturday, causing rivers and reservoirs to overflow.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – who was briefed about the response efforts on Monday – said that the disaster had brought out “the best of Australians”.

“I’ve seen Australians helping one another in their time of need,” he wrote on X, adding that the “threat from floodwaters” would persist in affected areas for days.

Efforts to assist the hardest-hit areas have been hindered by flood damage to parts of the Bruce Highway – the main thoroughfare stretching 1,673km (1039 miles) from the state’s south.

This included the partial collapse of a bridge that could add an extra 700km to driving routes and slow down the delivery of critical supplies, the Queensland Trucking Association told the ABC.

Queensland’s Premier David Crisafulli offered his condolences to the “tight-knit” town of Ingham, after a 63-year-old woman died when a State Emergency Service (SES) dinghy capsized during a rescue attempt on Sunday.

“We are deeply sorry for their loss,” he told reporters on Monday.

Crisafulli also urged all residents located in the so-called “black-zone” of the floods – which includes six Townsville suburbs – to not return home, due to the ongoing threat posed by the nearby Ross River.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said the area had received six months of rainfall in three days.

About 2,000 homes could be inundated as water levels rise before their expected peak on Tuesday, the Townsville Local Disaster Management Group warned.

Many homes have already been flooded. One Ingham resident who lives with her elderly mother told the Townsville Bulletin that she had waited seven hours for emergency services to help them evacuate after their property was affected.

“I was crying, I was hysterical. Someone even hung up on me when I called [emergency number] triple-0, saying: ‘We’re busy,'” she said.

Though rainfall is now easing, major flood warnings remain in place for communities along several rivers.

Crisafulli has warned that Ingham could be on track to experience its worst flooding in 60 years if the Herbert river surpasses a peak of 15.2m.

Emergency responders have continued working around the clock, with the SES receiving 480 calls for help on Sunday night and performing 11 “swift water” rescues. Widespread power outages continue to be reported, making it impossible for some communities to call for assistance.

SES Deputy Commissioner Shane Chelepy urged people to stay vigilant and check on their neighbours when possible. He added that some 400 people were now being housed in evacuation centres across Townsville, Ingham, and Cardwell.

Authorities have also asked locals to be on the lookout for crocodiles, saying that they could be lurking in streams away from their usual habitats.

Located in the tropics, north Queensland is vulnerable to destructive cyclones, storms, and flooding.

But climate scientists have warned that warmer oceans and a hotter planet are creating the conditions for more intense and frequent extreme rainfall events.

Authorities are warning that flood waters could rise up to second-storey level in a situation they described as dangerous and life-threatening.

More than 700mm (26in) of rain has fallen on parts of the North Queensland in the past 24 hours and there is concern that “record rainfalls” will continue into Monday, according to Queensland State Premier David Crisafulli.

Meteorologists say these could be the worst floods in the region in more than 60 years.

Crisafulli said conditions were unlike anything northern Queensland had experienced “for a long time”.

“It’s not just the intensity, but it’s also the longevity of it,” he told Australian broadcaster ABC.

Thousands of people living in the city of Townsville were told to leave their homes by midday on Sunday while authorities brought in 100,000 sandbags to block floodwater.

Parts of the road between Townsville and the tourist centre of Cairns have been cut off, hampering efforts to get rescue teams and sandbags to the area.

The government says the harsher sentencing rules are in response to “community outrage over crimes being perpetrated by young offenders” and will act as a deterrent.

But many experts have pointed to research showing that tougher penalties do not reduce youth offending, and can in fact exacerbate it.

The United Nations has also criticised the reforms, arguing they disregard conventions on the human rights of children and violate international law.

The Liberal National Party (LNP) – which won the state election in October – made the rules a hallmark of its campaign, saying they put the “rights of victims” ahead of “the rights of criminals”.

“These laws are for every Queenslander who has ever felt unsafe and been a victim of youth crime across our state,” Premier David Crisafulli said after parliament passed the bill on Thursday.

Leading up to the vote, both sides of politics had claimed that Queensland was in the grips of a youth crime wave, and that a more punitive approach was necessary to combat the issue.

But data from the Australian bureau of statistics, shows that youth crime has halved in Queensland across the past 14 years, that it hit its lowest rate in recorded history in 2022, and has remained relatively steady since.

Figures from the Queensland Police Service and the Australian Institute of Criminology also demonstrate a clear downward trend.

Dubbed by the government as “adult crime, adult time”, the new laws list 13 offences which will now be subject to harsher prison sentences when committed by youths, including mandatory life detention for murder, with a non-parole period of 20 years.

Previously, the maximum penalty for young offenders convicted of murder was 10 years in jail, with life imprisonment only considered if the crime was “particularly heinous”.

The laws also remove “detention as a last resort” provisions – which favour non-custodial orders, such as fines or community service, for children rather than incarceration – and will make it possible for judges to consider a child’s full criminal history when sentencing.

The Queensland Police Union has called the changes “a leap forward in the right direction”, while Queensland’s new Attorney-General Deb Frecklington says it will give courts the ability to “better address patterns of offending” and “hold people accountable for their actions”.

But in a summary, Frecklington also noted the changes were in direct conflict with international standards, that Indigenous children would be disproportionately impacted and that more youngsters were likely to be held in police cells for extended periods because detention centres are full.

Queensland already has more children in detention than any other Australian state or territory.

Premier Crisafulli said on Thursday that although there may be “pressure in the short-term” his government had a long-term plan to “deliver a raft of other detention facilities and different options”.

Australia’s commissioner for children, Anne Hollonds, described the changes as an “international embarrassment”.

She also accused Queensland’s government of “ignoring evidence” which suggests “the younger a child comes into contact with the justice system, the more likely it is that they will continue to commit more serious crimes”.

“The fact that [the bill’s] provisions are targeting our most at-risk children makes this retreat from human rights even more shocking,” she said in a statement on Wednesday.

Other legal experts, who gave evidence to a parliamentary hearing on the bill last week, said the laws could have unintended consequences for victims, with children being less likely to plead guilty given the tougher sentences, resulting in more trials and longer court delays.