Sydney, 27 December 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Seven people died in Queensland and two more died in Victoria as storms ravaged Australia's south-east on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

The bodies of three men - aged 48, 59 and 69 - were recovered after a boat capsized at Moreton Bay, off the coast of Brisbane, on Tuesday afternoon with 11 men on board, Queensland police's Andrew Pilotto said on Wednesday.

The 11 men on board were on an annual fishing trip, Pilotto said, adding that the other eight men on board were rescued and taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The body of a missing 40-year-old woman was located at 7 pm (0900 GMT) on Tuesday in the water, Queensland police said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The body of a second woman, 46, who went missing with the 40-year-old in Southside Gympie, some 150 kilometres north of Brisbane, on Boxing Day was recovered on Wednesday, police said.

A nine-year-old girl who went missing from a Brisbane suburb on Tuesday was "located deceased following an extensive search," Queensland police said. Australian news agency AAP reported that the girl was lost in stormwater drains.

A 59-year-old woman was also killed by a falling tree on the Gold Coast, south of Brisbane, amid the Christmas storms, AAP reported.

Queensland's new premier Steven Miles said that the storms, especially the one on Christmas Day, were "unprecedented."

"That storm, the day before yesterday in particular, it took down a concrete power line. It is the first time we have ever had a concrete power line destroyed by storm," Miles said in a press conference on Wednesday.

In the south-eastern state of Victoria, a woman was found dead on Tuesday evening in Buchan, some 300 kilometres east of Melbourne, after reports of flash flooding in the area.

Earlier on Tuesday, a 44-year-old man was killed after a branch fell on his property in Caringal, about 100 kilometres east of Melbourne, local media reported.

Much of Victoria remained on flood watch on Wednesday after a wet Christmas and Boxing Day while some further severe thunderstorms were possible on Wednesday around central and northern parts of the Queensland coast after the state was battered by bad weather on Monday and Tuesday.

Photo: EPA