Flooding rains will continue for days to lash a region of the Australian east coast even though it avoided its first tropical cyclone in 51 years.

Hundreds of thousands of people are under a blackout in Queensland, while flood warnings remain in place across New South Wales, after ex-Cyclone Alfred left a trail of destruction along Australia’s east coast.

Millions of residents along Australia’s eastern coast are bracing for the arrival of a very slow-moving storm, the most southerly tropical cyclone to threaten the region in more than 50 years.