Up to 20,000 homes are now at risk in Brisbane, the Queensland state premier¹ has said, as deadly floodwaters surge towards Australia's third-largest city.

澳大利亚昆士兰州州长宣称，洪水已经向布里斯班——澳大利亚第三大城市——蔓延，多达2万座房屋处于危险之中。

Central Brisbane is a ghost town, with electricity cut and thousands urged to either evacuate² or stay at home.

West of Brisbane, the city of Ipswich is being swamped（淹没） by flood waters in a situation described as "total chaos³".

Rescuers are preparing for a "gruesome（可怕的） " day searching for victims elsewhere.

The death toll⁴ from flash floods in Queensland is so far 10, but state Premier Anna Bligh told Australian television that the number of people missing west of Brisbane in the Lockyer Valley had risen.

"The police now are searching for more than 90 people," she said. "These are people who their families can no longer contact or find."

She added: "The one good news is the rain has cleared, so we've now got a number of search and rescue teams all ready to deploy⁵ into the valley to really start what might be a very gruesome search this morning for bodies and our police and emergency workers there are going to have a very tough day.

"I think we will all be shocked by what they will find."

'Serious event'

The central business district in Brisbane was almost totally deserted⁶ early on Wednesday, hit by a power cut that was intended to prevent generators⁷ becoming a fire risk if flooded.

Shops put up signs that they would not open.

The Brisbane Courier Mail said the Brisbane River had burst its banks at Yeerongpilly and Indooroopilly, flooding streets. The paper quoted city council flood modelling as predicting that 40,000 properties would be affected⁸.

More than 6,500 Brisbane residents are expected to take refuge in three evacuation centres.

The inner suburb of Fairfield has already suffered flooding to dozens of homes.

Local media said the peak for Brisbane could be in the early hours of Thursday and the level remain until Saturday. It is predicted to be higher than the 5.45m reached in the devastating⁹ 1974 floods.

Ms Bligh said: "I want to reassure¹⁰ particularly the people of Ipswich and Brisbane that we have every available resource deployed¹¹ to assist them over the next couple of days in what we expect to be a very serious event."

Brisbane is facing a combined surge of water from the flooded Lockyer Valley and the Wivenhoe Dam, which is so full it has been forced into controlled releases.

High, or king, tides on Thursday will exacerbate¹²（加剧，恶化） the problem.

Sandbags have been given out to residents in the city of two million people.

Mayor Campbell Newman said that Thursday would "be devastating for the residents and businesses affected".