A Brisbane man had a lucky escape after the houseboat he was on sank after crashing into a ferry terminal on the Brisbane River - swollen after three days of flooding in Queensland.
Footage of the incident at Kangaroo Point was filmed by local Jeff Gaunt , who was part of a nearby film crew which paused the shoot amid poor weather. His colleague, Matthew Porter says he feared the man was dead.
"We were filming a car commercial near the Story Bridge in Brisbane CBD," Porter said as he watched the incident unfold.
"A tug boat raced to save the houseboat but it was too late, it hit the ferry terminal and was sucked straight under."
"I feared he was dead, the houseboat wreck reappeared and I could not see him so I radioed the police, they got in touch with a police boat and found the guy alive," he said.
He said 40 minutes later the police told him the man had been saved.
"After I reviewed the footage, then I saw that he climbed back onto the wreck that was found down stream," Porter told 1News.
It comes as severe weather warnings are in place from Bundaberg in the Wide Bay- Burnett region of Queensland through to Port Macquarie on the NSW mid north coast.
Meteorologist David Grant told Nine News the amount of rainfall over one day was equal to a month's-worth.
"Uusually in Brisbane we see an average of 150mm so essentially we've seen a month's worth of rainfall in one day".
AAP reports the weather event as "completely unpredictable" and has killed six people in the northern state, with hundreds evacuated.
On Sunday, a man died in the Brisbane suburb of Indooroopilly when his car became submerged. The 34-year-old tried to swim to safety but witnesses raised the alarm when he failed to surface.
On Saturday, police divers found the body of a 37-year-old man in floodwaters near Gympie, north of the Sunshine Coast, while that of a 54-year-old man was discovered at Stones Corner in inner Brisbane.
A female SES volunteer was also killed when a car she was in was swept away en route to a rescue near Ipswich on Friday night.
The deaths follow those of a 54-year-old man killed trying to ride a motorbike through rising water at Gympie last week and a 63-year-old found dead in a submerged car on the Sunshine Coast.
In NSW, a man died on the Central Coast on Friday morning after his LandCruiser was carried away by floodwaters.
Queensland's Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski has urged people not to leave home unless absolutely necessary.
In Gympie, 700 people along the swollen Mary River - expected to rise above its highest level in 23 years in the next 24 hours - began evacuating, while supplies were delivered to an Indigenous community in nearby Cherbourg set to be cut off by floodwaters.
Heavy rain and potential flash flooding are forecast from Kingaroy through to the NSW border on Sunday and intense falls are predicted for an area encompassing Hervey Bay, Yarraman, Toowoomba and Ipswich.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner on Saturday evening issued a warning for 16 suburbs along the Brisbane River, saying "several thousand properties" could be inundated.
Water is being released from Brisbane's Wivenhoe Dam. The Moogerah Dam, inland from the Gold Coast, is also spilling, as is the Atkinson Dam.
In NSW, a severe weather alert for Sunday spans 450km from the Queensland border to Port Macquarie.
Late on Saturday, the Insurance Council of Australia declared an insurance catastrophe for southeast Queensland, with claims and assessment teams to begin helping householders as soon as it is safe to do so.
The federal government says disaster assistance has been activated for 10 local councils in Queensland’s southeast.
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