At least nine people have died due to severe weather in the eastern Australian states of Queensland and Victoria, officials said yesterday. Police said: Three people died when a boat carrying 11 people capsized due to bad weather at Moreton Bay on the Queensland coast on Tuesday. Ambulances took the eight survivors to hospital for treatment and are in stable condition. A 59-year-old woman died after a tree fell in Queensland's Gold Coast on Monday evening.

Authorities found the body of a nine-year-old girl in the neighboring city of Brisbane on Tuesday, hours after she went missing in a flooded drain. The bodies of two women (aged 40 and 46) were also found in the Mary River in Gympie, Queensland. Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll said bad weather was a factor in the deaths. He further told reporters that it was a very sad 24 hours because of the weather.

Bad weather has hit parts of south-east Australia, including Queensland and Victoria, since Monday. The body of an unidentified woman was found on Tuesday evening in Buchan, Victoria, after flash floods washed away the land. Police said that the dead body of an unidentified man who was staying with the woman in the camp was also found late on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, a 44-year-old man was killed when a tree fell on his farm in Karingal, eastern Victoria state. Thunderstorms and strong winds knocked down more than a thousand power lines across parts of Queensland, leaving 85,000 people without power.