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Tsunami-like flash floods raced towards Australia's third-largest city of Brisbane on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of its outskirts, flood warnings for the financial district and predictions that the death toll is likely to climb.

The worst flooding in the coal-exporting state of Queensland in half a century has killed 12, but that number is expected to rise, state premier Anna Bligh said in Brisbane, a city of two million people near the mouth of a large river.

"We have a grim and desperate situation," Bligh told a news conference, adding that the flood threat to state capital Brisbane would peak on Wednesday or Thursday.

In Toowoomba, a town west of Brisbane, eight people were killed on Monday night when a "super rainstorm" sent a 2-metre wall of water through streets on Monday, sweeping away cars and pedestrians.