Military aircraft have ferried supplies to an Australian town submerged by swollen rivers, as record flooding in the country's northeast cuts off thousands of people.
Floods submerged the Capricorn Highway, the major traffic artery through Queensland state, and poured into homes in the sinking town of Rockhampton, sending furniture and refrigerators cascading down torrents of floodwater.
Rockhampton, a community of 77,000 just off the Pacific coast and 600 km (370 miles) north of the state capital Brisbane, is accessible mainly by emergency services boats.
Rescue workers have escorted stranded patients out of hospitals and police have ordered reluctant residents to leave their homes.
Meanwhile, dozens of Australian moviegoers have been injured after the roof of a cinema crashed down during a storm, forcing many to scramble under seats to avoid falling debris.
Police said 36 people suffered minor injuries at The Metro Cinema in the regional centre of Bathurst, 175km west of Sydney.
16 people were initially trapped in the collapse but emergency officials quickly released them before conducting a secondary sweep to ensure no one had been overlooked.
One witness told Sky News ‘We were watching Chronicles of Narnia and we heard water leaking, at first we thought it could have been special effects and then it got louder and louder and then the roof was coming down on us.’
The intense storm which hit Bathurst brought wind gusts of up to 90km an hour to the town and dumped 10mm of rain in 30 minutes.
