Hundreds of thousands of people in Australia's Queensland state were without power on Sunday after Alfred, a downgraded tropical cyclone, brought damaging winds and heavy rains, sparking flood warnings.

Tropical storm Alfred could cause significant flooding in eastern Australia despite the slowly moving storm no longer being a cyclone.

Significant damage and power outages are possible in the densely populated region of Queensland, where tropical cyclones impacts are not uncommon but direct landfalls are.