Rescuers find woman missing in floods on Queensland Sunshine Coast

RESCUERS have found a 47-year-old woman who spent the night in bushland near Gympie after leaving her car beside a flooded road.

RESCUERS have found a 47-year-old woman who spent a cold and wet night in drenched bushland on Queensland's Sunshine Coast after leaving her car beside a flooded road.

She was spotted by a swift-water rescue crew at about 10am local time, and is being checked for possible hypothermia.

The woman parked her car near Pomona and telephoned her husband to say she would walk out through the bush. She later said she was in knee-deep water, raising grave concern for her safety.

A helicopter joined the intensive search for her this morning.

In the wake of the death of a 77-year-old man in floodwaters north of Brisbane yesterday, police had serious concerns for the woman's safety more than 12 hours after she walked into bushland.

Another rescue is underway at Kandanga, 28km south-west of Gympie, where a motorist is stranded. The driver is safe and on dry land, but rescuers are being forced to use a flood boat to retrieve him.

Large swathes of Queensland and New South Wales are again in the grips of serious wet weather, with the town of Gympie, 160km north of Brisbane, due to flood for the second time this year and the fifth in two years.

Up to 40 businesses are expected to be inundated, when the Mary River rises to the major flood level of 17m this afternoon, with a peak of 18m expected tonight.

The state's main arterial road, the Bruce Highway, is cut south of Gympie at Traveston and is expected to remain unpassable until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. Motorists are being told to delay their travel plans.

Overnight, the Queensland SES received more than 230 calls for help in the 24 hours to 5am today. Nearly 80 of those were for the south-east - including the Gold Coast, Logan, Ipswich, Scenic Rim and Somerset - while in the Lockyer Valley, there were about 35 requests for assistance. More than 45 households called for help in Brisbane itself, mostly for assistance with leaking roofs and rising floodwaters.