A 64-year-old woman has died after the car she was in was swept away in the NSW Hunter region.
On Friday morning, police said they held concerns for the woman after her car was swept off a causeway at Gungal, west of Muswellbrook.
A police spokeswoman told AAP on Friday night that the car has been found along with the woman's body.
Another woman's body was found on Friday morning after she disappeared in floodwaters at a rural property in northern NSW.
The woman disappeared overnight at the Upper Burringbar property and was found the next day by a family member.
A police spokeswoman said other people at the property weren't injured, and it was still unclear how the woman died.
"It took police a few hours to reach the property due to flooding," the spokeswoman told AAP.
Meanwhile, police don't believe that a man who collapsed and died at his Murwillumbah home in northern NSW had entered flood waters.
The 46-year-old was with his partner and adult children when he collapsed about 2am on Friday, and was unable to be revived.
A post-mortem will be held to find out the cause of the man's death.
The fatalities come after tens of thousands of people were evacuated from towns across NSW and Queensland due to severe flooding caused by Tropical Cyclone Debbie.
The category four storm hit northeastern Australia on Tuesday between Bowen and Airlie Beach, ripping up trees, washing boats onto land and causing widespread damage.
Debbie was downgraded to a tropical low as it tracked southeast, but continued to pack damaging gusts and dump huge amounts of rain down the eastern coast to NSW.
The federal and state governments have announced that natural disaster assistance will be made available to residents in Ballina, Byron, Kyogle, Lismore, Richmond Valley and Tweed regions.
"We are committed to ensuring those impacted by flooding have the support they need to recover and rebuild and will extend assistance to other areas if required," the NSW Emergency Services Minister Troy Grant said.
Lismore has been hit hard, with the State Emergency Service (SES) warning there may have been fatalities caused by the flooding.
The city's siren was activated on Thursday night to warn residents to leave immediately.
"It's the first time it's been activated in 12 years," Lismore mayor Isaac Smith told AAP.
Floodwaters topped the 10.6-metre level at 4.15am on Friday, with water levels predicted to reach as high as 11.5 metres, Mr Smith said.
Murwillumbah, Chinderah and Kyogle are also expected to be affected by rising waters - more than 19,000 people across the state are .
Other towns subject to evacuation orders include Tweed Heads, Kingscliff and Murwillumbah.
Farmer Peter Hannigan, whose property is just north of Lismore, said the deluge was the worst he had ever seen in more than 50 years in the area.
"I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of significant damage on the farms," he told the ABC.
"It is the worst I have ever seen I have to admit."
More than 6,000 people have left their homes in northern NSW, as rivers rage with the rain dumped by ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie, which pummelled Queensland earlier this week.
NSW SES Deputy Commissioner Mark Morrow says there were 130 flood rescues in the NSW area overnight, and fears some who couldn't be reached may have died.
Mr Morrow painted a dramatic picture of efforts overnight to save people from floodwaters in the north.
"About 130 flood rescues, people in cars, people trapped on roofs of houses. We'll get out there as soon as we can in daylight with aerial assets as well, helicopters, and we'll try and find those people that made calls to us last night and help them this morning."
Raw sewage leaks
Residents in Queensland's Darling Downs are being warned to stay out of the floodwaters following raw sewage leaks from wastewater treatment plants at Warwick and Stanthorpe.
Southern Downs Regional Council says the plants at Warwick and Stanthorpe have been compromised during the flooding with multiple spills from pump stations and manholes.
Locals are being urged to stay out of floodwaters as there is a high risk of infection from the contaminated water, while those who've been in the water should decontaminate hands and clothing by washing thoroughly with soap and water.
Cost of the storm
The Insurance Council of Australia's chief executive Rob Whelan said the cost of Tropical Cyclone Debbie to insurers could rise to more than $1 billion.
About 7,500 claims have been lodged from residents in Queensland as of Friday lunch time, Mr Whelan said.
At present, insurance losses are expected to be "hundreds of millions of dollars" as residents and businesses return to their properties and log claims but the figure is expected to rise given severe flooding in the northern NSW city of Lismore after the cyclone, he told reporters at a briefing in Sydney.
Image
Evacuation orders
The SES has issued Flood Evacuations Orders for the following areas:
- South Murwillumbah, Condong and Tumbulgum.
- Chinderah, Kingscliff and Fingal Head.
- Lismore CBD, and North and South Lismore.
- Tweed Heads South, Tweed Heads West and Tweed Heads.
- Murwillumbah CBD and East.
- Kyogle.
- Billinudgel.
- Ocean Shores.
- New Brighton.
There is also a flood evacuation warning for downstream of Rocky Creek Dam.
Closer to the Queensland border, residents in 500 homes in the South Murwillumbah, Condong and Tumbulgum areas were also ordered to evacuate, with the Tweed River experiencing major flooding.
People in Tweed Heads South and West, Chinderah, Kingscliff, Fingal Head and Bilambil were told to leave too.
Recovery efforts
Further north in Queensland, the popular tourist city of Gold Coast and other nearby regions were also inundated by water. Upper Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland recorded 789mm of water during Thursday, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
The weather bureau's regional director Bruce Gunn said across southeast Queensland where the Gold Coast is located, there had been widespread rain of between 100-300mm falls over the last two days.
"In terms of what happened in the last 24 or 48 hours, we have seen some pretty big rainfall totals," he told Brisbane's Courier Mail.
"There is still that strong risk around the Gold Coast."
Focus has turned to the restoration of essential services such as water and electricity in the areas hit by Debbie, including Bowen, Mackay and the Whitsundays where some 50,000 people were still without power, officials said.
The military has mobilised 1,300 soldiers to help assess the full extent of damage and aid the clean-up, with helicopters and planes deploying to restore infrastructure and supply emergency food, water and fuel.
