A nine-year-old girl killed in a storm after she was swept into a drain has been identified – as the death toll rises and searches continue for a missing person.
Mia Holland-McCormack, 9, died on Boxing Day after being swept away by flood waters when she jumped over the back fence of her family’s home in Rochedale South, in southeast Brisbane.
Mia, who is severely autistic, was known to have liked ‘parks and water’ according to social media posts from locals who frantically searched for her.
Brisbane Rugby identity David ‘Mario’ Logan and schoolteacher Stephen ‘Taity’ Tait were also pronounced dead after a boat holding 11 people capsized near Green Island, in Moreton Bay, at about 5:30pm on Boxing Day.
A Tingalpa man, 59, was confirmed by police to be the third person to die from the accident when he was discovered on Wednesday morning following desperate attempts to find him overnight.
Robyn Carman, 59, died just a hundred metres from her Gold Coast home on Christmas night after being struck by a falling tree.
Paramedics attempted to save Ms Carman in the midst of an ‘unprecedented’ cyclonic storm that smashed the area throughout Christmas and Boxing Day.
Mia Holland-McCormack, 9, (pictured) died on Boxing Day night after being swept away by flood waters when she jumped over the back fence of her family’s home in Rochester South
Mia is one of five people who have been killed during horror storms in Queensland’s southeast (pictured) over Christmas and Boxing Day
A GoFundMe was set up to supper Mia’s parents, Ryan and Kayla, in the wake of their daughter’s tragic death.
‘On Boxing Day evening the unthinkable happened when Mia was found unresponsive in floodwaters,’ the fundraising page reads.
‘Mia loved adventures and getting up to mischief, however being severely autistic this was additionally challenging for her amazing parents Ryan and Kayla.
‘On the evening of 26 December 2023, Mia took off over the back fence at home, just before a storm hit. She was found a few kms from home in the water unresponsive.
‘As this devastating news comes to the harsh light of reality, so too does the added costs Ryan and Kayla are about to take on, already being a time where everyone is stretched after Christmas.’
The fundraiser has already raised over $8,100 in just under four hours.
Mr Logan was remembered by the Brother’s Rugby League Club, who he volunteered for, as ‘one of the best’.
‘In a club that has so many stalwarts and legends, ‘Mario’ was right up the top as one of Brothers’ most favourite son,’ Geoff Rodgers, the club’s president, said according to the ABC.
‘The Brothers family is so saddened by Mario’s passing but we will always remember how privileged we have been to have had him in our lives.’
The school which Mr Tait taught at, Iona College, issued a statement prior to his death being confirmed asking for ‘Ionians… to pray for Steve, his family and everyone affected’.
‘The College will continue to support Steve’s family during this time,’ the statement reads.
A car is stuck in floodwaters in Longlands Street, East Brisbane, on Tuesday
Severe thunderstorms have produced large hailstones (pictured) in northern NSW
More than 20,000 people are also without power throughout Melbourne and Victoria’s east after being hit with ‘unplanned’ outages.
A spokesperson for AusNet told Daily Mail Australia that the energy provider is ‘working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible’.
The storms have also left about 92,000 people in southeast Queensland without power, over 8,000 of which in Tambourine Mountain west of the Gold Coast.
Police divers continue to search between Manly and Green Island for the last person who remains missing from the capsized boat.
The search was suspended just before midnight on Tuesday after finding no trace of the person.
The body of a 40-year-old woman was pulled from the Mary River in Gympie after reports two women had been swept away in floodwaters near the Kidd Bridge.
A 46-year-old woman remains missing with the search to resume on Wednesday.
In Victoria, a woman who is yet to be formally identified was found dead at a campground in Buchan in the state’s Gippsland region.
Emergency services were called to the campsite following reports cars were underwater and people were sheltering on a bridge to escape flash flooding.
Buchan copped up to 69.4mm of rain in just half an hour on Tuesday.
A Victorian man has died after being struck in the head by a falling tree branch while camping on a private property in Caringal, in the state’s east.
Emergency services tried to revive him but he died at the scene on Tuesday.
Fallen power lines, felled trees smashing cars and homes, and several drivers crashing into poles have kept emergency crews busy since Christmas Day.
Gympie was hit by a severe thunderstorm on Tuesday that uprooted trees as a band of storms rolled through Queensland’s southeast.
A crane at Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast couldn’t withstand the force of the storms
Fallen trees are seen at Reedy Creek on the Gold Coast on Tuesday
Golf ball size hail was spotted at Zillmere in Brisbane’s north while 62mm of rain was recorded in Jindalee, in the city’s southwest, in just one hour.
Queensland Ambulance Service assistant commissioner Andrew Hebbron warned people to avoid travelling on the roads during severe weather.
‘An absolutely tragic set of circumstances and a good reminder for the moment and especially today that if you don’t need to be on the roads today we encourage you not to be,’ he said.
In Jimboomba, south of Brisbane, Betty and David Hall’s ceiling collapsed.
‘It was scary, I was panicking,’ Ms Hall said.
‘We lost power as well.’
It came after wild storms on Christmas Day left thousands of homes without power with more than 120,000 people without electricity as of Tuesday afternoon.
Of those, 82,000 were on the Gold Coast, where 700 power lines were down.
‘There’ll be a couple of days of work there to rectify that,’ Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said.
‘We’ve got powerlines down, even at our theme parks, so we’re prioritising that as well.’
Queensland along with parts of Australia’s east coast endured a torrid few days as the wild weather settled in across Christmas Eve and Christmas day
The Queensland Ambulance Service said paramedics’ workloads ‘surged significantly’ as storms hit the Gold Coast on Monday night.
‘We saw everything from people being injured in their homes from damage that was incurred by the storms to some less serious electrocutions,’ Mr Hebbron said.
A man in his 70s was hurt when a tree branch fell onto a tent in Helensvale. He was in a stable condition in hospital with pelvic and back injuries.
A collapsed roof put a man in his 90s in hospital with a head injury, where he remained in a stable condition.
The severe storms forced Dreamworld and other Gold Coast theme parks to close on Boxing Day for safety checks.
A major flood warning was issued for the Logan River on Tuesday, with flood waters already spilling over the banks at 8.7m at Beaudesert, at the Scenic Rim region.
Wind gusts of up to 106km whipped through the seaside tourist hotspot late into the evening on Christmas Day, felling trees and sending debris flying through the street.
Queensland Premier Steven Miles said the SES had reported concrete power poles being taken down by the ferocity of the weather.
‘It will take days to get all of them repaired. I spoken to the mayors of Logan and Gold Coast, the situation is in hand through their local disaster management,’ the premier told media on Tuesday.
Deputy Premier Cameron Dick said the fierce storm ‘can only be described as a mini cyclone’, with emergency crews working overtime to restore power.
Properties in Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast suffered damage in wild weather across Christmas Day and Boxing Day in 2023
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A tree is ripped from the ground during a storm in Oxenford on the Gold Coast
Power utility company Energex has crews worked overnight to restore power to more than 57,000 customers throughout southeast Queensland
Power utility company Energex has warned that damage from the storms is ‘catastrophic and widespread’ and some customers will be without power for days.
‘This is an extremely dangerous situation,’ the power utility said on Boxing Day.
‘If you need to be outside, watch for fallen powerlines – report any you see ASAP to 000 or 13 19 62, stay well away and warn others.
‘Never, ever assume that a downed powerline is anything other than live and dangerous.’
Meanwhile, in Victoria, scores of homes were also still impacted by power outages in the state’s central and northern regions, including around Sherparton and Echua.
Residents in the state capital shared video online on Tuesday of what they claimed were long streaks of lightning lighting up the sky during a flight over the city.
Play in the Boxing Day cricket Test, where Australia is taking on Pakistan, stopped for several hours from after 2pm when rain started over the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
However, the teams were able to return to the field in the late afternoon.
Further north, residents in regional NSW braced amid renewed threats of flooding, including on the south coast which witnessed ‘intense’ rainfall on Monday.
The BOM recorded more than 89mm of rain falling in just one hour in the Eurobodalla region, an area popular with tourists during summer.
Advice-level flood warnings were also in place on Tuesday for swathes of the state’s south, including around the Snowy Mountains and Tumut regions.
In the NSW Hunter region, hailstones the size of tennis balls pounded the small town of Rutherford, north of Newcastle.
Sunset is seen as a tropical storm passes through Reedy Creek on the Gold Coast on Tuesday
A huge number of trees have been brought down by the fierce winds over the festive season
Hailstones along with damaging winds and heavy rain hit several towns (Rutherford, pictured) across NSW with the wild weather making it’s way to Sydney
Michelle Hadley, posting to social media, showed off a photo of her hands cupping large hailstones with the caption ‘Rutherford’.
Responding to Ms Hadley’s post, Caz Hooper posted a photo of a bucketful of hailstones and said her car had been wrecked by the blast of hail.
‘So much massive hail in Rutherford,’ she said.
‘I imagine the insurance companies will be very busy this week! My car is wrecked!’
Brooke Lewins, meanwhile, said she had seen ‘tennis ball-sized’ hail in the town.
Videos posted to the Maitland Community Noticeboard page show a wild hailstone storm smashing the area, with stones and sharp winds tearing into cars and streets.
Tuesday saw conditions ease across much of the country with BOM cancelling multiple weather warnings in NSW and South Australia.
Sydney was forecast to receive only showers, with the possibility of a storm. Similar forecasts were made for Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra.
In the country’s west, advice-level warnings were still in place for a number of bushfires across the southwest.
In the state’s north, a heatwave warning was still in place.
