SYDNEY: Just days after bushfires threatened an Australian World Heritage site, thousands were bracing for floods on the subtropical east coast on Sunday (Dec 13), with beaches closed and the authorities urging people to sandbag their homes.

With as much as 475 millimetres of rain in the previous 24 hours, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a "severe weather warning" for the border area between New South Wales and Queensland states, a heavily populated area that includes the Queensland state capital Brisbane.