\n<\/p>\n
Two bodies have been discovered in the search for backpackers missing in Queensland flood waters, marking the first flood-related fatalities in the region.<\/p>\n
Police on Thursday said they believed the bodies were of two international tourists who had been travelling to Queensland\u2019s flood-ravaged North Burnett region from Brisbane but failed to arrive at their destination.<\/p>\n
The disappearance of the 26-year-old man and 23-year-old woman sparked a search of the area from Kilkivan to Mundubbera, west of Gympie, where flood waters had recently inundated communities.<\/p>\n
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/span><\/p>\n Police, SES volunteers and helicopters scoured the region from Wednesday morning, later locating a silver vehicle at Kilkivan Tansey Road.<\/p>\n Seven network reported its news crew had found the car while surveying the flood zone.<\/p>\n Police later confirmed two bodies were found in the vehicle. Divers and forensic teams are investigating the scene.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, police believe the two deceased to be the missing 26-year-old man and 23-year-old woman,\u201d police said.<\/p>\n They mark the first fatalities in the flood-hit region, where more communities are expected to be inundated in the coming days.<\/p>\n The Chinchilla community north-west of Brisbane is next in line after Bundaberg was flooded on Wednesday, inundating hundreds of houses and businesses.<\/p>\n Chinchilla\u2019s flooded Charleys Creek was not expected to reach a 6.8m peak until about midday on Thursday, the local mayor, Andrew Smith, said.<\/p>\n Residents were clinging to hope that Charleys Creek, which runs through the town, would not reach the devastating flood levels of 2011.<\/p>\n The Bureau of Meteorology warned that major flooding was approaching Longreach, where possibly prolonged floods were expected from Thursday evening into Friday morning.<\/p>\n Senior meteorologist Jonathan How said while no more heavy rain was forecast for the region, slow-moving river waters would continue to impact communities downstream from Bundaberg and Chinchilla in coming days.<\/p>\n Light showers were forecast in the state\u2019s south east on Friday, creating \u201ca nuisance for the clean-up but they won\u2019t create flooding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As of late morning on Thursday, eight major flood warnings were in place in Queensland, including for the residents of Longreach, Windorah, Surat and Warkon.<\/p>\n In the Northern Territory\u2019s top end and into the Kimberley in Western Australia, major flood warnings were still in place on Thursday morning, including for the Daly River.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything is quite saturated and any further rain could cause flooding again – that\u2019s a watch point over next few days,\u201d How said.<\/p>\n Heavy rain was forecast in the Kimberley over the weekend and expected to push into central Australia on Monday and Tuesday next week, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two bodies have been discovered in the search for backpackers missing in Queensland flood waters, marking the first flood-related fatalities in the region. Police on Thursday said they believed the bodies were of two international tourists who had been travelling to Queensland\u2019s flood-ravaged North Burnett region from Brisbane but failed to arrive at their destination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[22472,2249,2968,100,1551,2329],"class_list":{"0":"post-46495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-backpackers","9":"tag-bodies","10":"tag-floods","11":"tag-missing","12":"tag-police","13":"tag-queensland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}