Wild Video: Australia's Raging Flood Waters Wash Away Parking Lot of Cars

So far, historic floods in Australia's Queensland state have claimed 18 lives, eight of them taken in a tsunami-like flash flood that struck the city of Toowoomba Sunday afternoon. Without warning, the d of 90,000 was hit by raging torrents that washed away cars and houses.

Shocking new video captures the progressively rising waters and their devastating effects on a local parking lot:

After the rapids rushed through, eight were dead and another 72 were missing. The UK's Guardian reports:

Queensland state premier Anna Bligh said there were "grave concerns" for at least 11 of the missing people.

"This has been a night of extraordinary events," Bligh told reporters today. "We've seen acts of extreme bravery and courage from our emergency workers. We know they're out on the front line desperately trying to begin their search and rescue efforts, and we know we have people stranded and people lost."

Queensland has been in the grip of its worst flooding for more than two weeks, after tropical downpours across a vast area of the state covered an area the size of France and Germany combined. Entire towns have been swamped, more than 200,000 people affected, and coal and farming industries virtually shut down. Yesterday's deaths took the death toll since late November to at least 18.