Mudslides spark emergency in Queensland township

Buildings have been damaged after a mudslide carved a 30 metre-wide path after heavy rain fell in Hideaway Bay in the Whitsundays. Photo / AAP

An emergency situation has been declared in a tropical Queensland township that's endured three mudslides in the past few days.

Up to 627 millimetres of rain has been recorded around Hideaway Bay in the Whitsundays in the past three days, causing a hill above the township to become unstable, slipping once early on Tuesday morning and twice on Wednesday night.

Three properties had mud through their land but the torrent stopped short of entering homes.

Clay, rocks and tree stumps spewed onto two roads, covering them knee-deep in the muck, but no one has been injured.

Fourteen homes were evacuated and it is yet to be decided if further evacuations would be ordered on Thursday night.

A geotechnical engineer flew across the site on Thursday and is assessing if there is a risk of more slides.

The Whitsunday Regional Council, which held a meeting on Thursday morning, said the emergency situation may be upgraded to a disaster situation later in the day, giving authorities more powers.

Mayor Mike Brunker said the site of the slides was "quite scary".

"I'm worried about the people living there and they are worried as well," he said.

"It's a huge escarpment and there's not too much we can do at this stage.

"The main problem is if it keeps raining.

"It's in the lap of the Gods."

He said the council would not allow any more development approvals on the hill and those already existing may have to be protected with channels or barriers.

"We'll have to assess all that once the dust settles," he said.

The Hines family have been worst hit by the slide.

Early on Tuesday morning it gushed through the bottom, uninhabited level of their home, their shed was swamped and their two rain tanks damaged.

"I've seen better days," Andrew Hines told AAP.

He lives in the house with his wife and four children and is still going ahead with a six-week family holiday to Britain, leaving Friday.

He says he's not worried about what may happen to his property, as long as his family is safe.

"Once I get on that plane, we'll breathe a sigh of relief," he told AAP.

"Normally we call Hideaway Bay where the desert meets the sea but it's been raining here since October and the hillside is absolutely bubbling, it's so saturated, it just can't take any more water.

"We just want to get out of here, the mental pressure of it all is just starting to get us."

Local caravan park owner Paul Willcocks said it was the most action the town had seen since it was established 20-odd years ago.

"There's flashing lights, council workers, media, it's very busy," he told AAP.

He said the slips had brought the community together.

He got out his Bobcat as soon as he heard the first of the two slides on Wednesday night.

"We got busy trying to push all the dirt to one side of the road so if there was another one it didn't inundate some houses on the beach, in the meantime there was another slip around the corner," he said.

"The community got together and everybody raced around to make sure everyone was okay.

"We are concerned about more slips because of the intensity of the rain we've had."

In the region, in the 24 hours to 9am (AEST), 247mm fell on Dumbleton Rocks, 232mm on Greenmount and 173mm on Proserpine.

Proserpine Airport, one of the closest observation sites to Hideaway Bay, has had a record amount of rainfall in March, 1077.2mm until 9am Thursday, almost doubling the previous record in 1979.

Up to 200mm could fall on the region again in the 24 hours to 9am on Friday.

"Certainly, over the 24 to 48 hours over the central coast there will be heavy rainfalls, mostly north of Mackay," senior forecaster Michelle Berry told AAP.

A trough over the northwest Coral Sea is bringing the rain over the central coast, extending further north to the tropical coast by Friday.

Rain will only start to ease over the region by late on the weekend or early next week.

"They'll still have some showers but not what they've been experiencing," Ms Berry said.

A flood warning is current for the coastal rivers and streams between Townsville and St Lawrence.

- AAP