Mia Holland-McCormack died after she was caught up in brutal weather on Boxing Day (Picture: GoFundMe)
A nine-year-old girl who died after she was swept away by flood water during a brutal thunderstorm has been named.
Mia Holland-McCormack was one of at least 10 people who were killed over the Christmas period as huge hailstones, high speed winds and torrential rain battered eastern Australia.
The youngster jumped over a back fence at her home just moments before the storm hit on Boxing Day, according to her family.
She was later found unresponsive in flood water a few kilometres away in Brisbane.
Her father’s cousin Tamara paid tribute on a GoFundMe page set up to raise money for the child’s funeral after ‘the unthinkable happened’.
‘Mia loved adventures and getting up to mischief,’ she wrote.
‘However, being severely autistic, this was additionally challenging for her amazing parents Ryan and Kayla.’
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The bodies of three men, aged 48, 59 and 69, were also recovered from the water in Moreton Bay, Queensland, police confirmed.
They died after a motorboat capsized with 11 people on board shortly before 5.30pm on December 26.
Eight other people on the 39ft pleasure craft for an annual fishing trip near Green Island were rescued and taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
After the severe storm, two women, aged 46 and 40, were found dead following a search operation in the Mary River, near Gympie.
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They were among three women who were swept into the flooded river through a stormwater drain as the third woman, also aged 46, managed to survive.
Meanwhile, a 59-year-old woman was killed by a falling tree in Gold Coast on Monday night and a man and woman were found dead at a campground at Buchan in regional Victoria.
Queensland Police commissioner Katarina Carroll blamed ‘extraordinarily difficult weather’ for the tragedies.
‘It has been a very tragic 24 hours due to the weather,’ she said.
Severe weather has lashed parts of southeast Australia since Monday with more than 1,000 power lines brought down in parts of Queensland.
The carnage has left 85,000 people without electricity.
Speaking of Mia’s death, Tamara added: ‘As this devastating news comes to the harsh light of reality, so too does the added costs Ryan and Kayla are about to take on, already being a time where everyone is stretched after Christmas.
‘If you are able to, I ask that you donate what you can, to help cover funeral costs, additional grief counselling and no doubt some additional time off work while they work through this devastation.’
Just last week, crocodiles were seen swimming through the streets during flooding as people clung to their roofs.
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