Hundreds of homes and businesses have been inundated by major flooding in the coastal Queensland city of Bundaberg after the Burnett River burst its banks in the wake of a tropical low.

The Queensland premier, David Crisafulli, said on Wednesday morning that 197 people had spent the night at an evacuation centre in Bundaberg and about 2,000 homes were without power.

“There are people whose homes and businesses have now been impacted for the fourth time in just over 15 years,” he said.

The city of more than 70,000 people last experienced flooding in 2010, 2011 and 2013. The January 2013 flood resulted in significant damage including the inundation of more than 4,000 homes.

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Locals were asked to leave immediately on Tuesday afternoon before the community’s two major bridges were closed, leaving about 10,000 people isolated.

Helen Blackburn, the mayor of Bundaberg regional council, said on Wednesday morning that “a few hundred homes and properties” had been affected but the full extent of the flood impacts would not be known “for probably a week”.

“In the coming day or two, we will be looking to open the bridges again and we’ll also be looking to assess each property individually to ensure that those properties are safe to be habitable,” she said.

Authorities believed the Burnett River at Bundaberg had peaked at about 7.4 metres, shy of the forecast height of 7.6 metres, Blackburn said.

“We’ll just have to wait and see what the rest of the day brings,” she said.

“It’s certainly some anxiety-ridden times for people that have been through floods before. We know that even heavy rain can cause mental health issues for some people that have been through this time and time again.”

Chief Insp Grant Marcus of the Queensland Police Service said authorities rescued one person who had driven into flood waters overnight, and another in daylight hours.

Crisafulli said: “Isolation continues across much of Queensland.” He noted that flood levels at Charleys Creek upstream of Chinchilla and in Longreach had not yet peaked.

Among Queensland’s highest three-day rainfall totals – from 9am Saturday to 9am Tuesday – were 396mm at Boondooma, 381mm at Marodian, 279mm at Bundaberg South and 263mm at Gympie.

The premier added that 122 agricultural surveys showed 1,200 head of cattle and 1,000km of fences had been lost in the Burnett-Fraser Coast-Gympie area, though he noted it was still “extremely early days”.

The damage comes after days of heavy rain across northern Australia, with Darwin residents asked to reduce water use after the Darwin River Dam – the city’s major water source – stopped operating due to flooding.

Temporary generators were put in place, with the full water supply set to return in the coming days.

More rain has stalled the clean-up at Katherine, which on Saturday experienced its worst flooding in decades and where hundreds of people remain in shelters. Houses are still without power and crocodiles have been spotted in flood waters.

Hundreds of residents from the communities of Nauiyu (Daly River), Nganmarriyanga (formerly known as Palumpa), Beswick and Jilkminggan were airlifted at the weekend, mostly to Darwin.

Flood watches were in place across much of the Northern Territory, particularly on the Top End’s north-west coast including Darwin, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

“Within this flood watch area, any river, creek, lagoon, billabong, any waterway, is going to be very, very responsive to heavy falls that can occur,” the Bureau of Meteorology’s Shenage Gamble told reporters on Tuesday. That could readily lead to localised and flash flooding, she said.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, on Tuesday urged people in affected communities to prioritise their safety by following flood advice and warnings.

“If it’s flooded, forget it – we can’t say it too many times,” he said. “If people follow that advice, we’ll continue to provide support, as we always do, with the state and territory governments.”

Across Australia, the 2025-26 summer was the wettest in nearly a decade, according to the BoM, with rainfall 32% higher than average across the country.

Global heating is making Australia more vulnerable to extreme weather and natural disasters, including flash flooding and intense rainfall. In 2025, the third-hottest year on record, global surface air temperatures averaged 1.48C above preindustrial levels. For each 1C of warming, the atmosphere can hold 7% more moisture.