Three people are feared to be dead after they were trapped in a car that disappeared in a flooded river in northern NSW on Monday.
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The car went into the Tweed River off Dulguigan Road near Tumbulgum just after 1.40pm on Monday, a NSW Police spokeswoman said.
The research vehicle Okeanos Explorer is collecting video and data from the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
A young child was able to escape the vehicle and seek help from a resident at a nearby house.
After a frantic two-hour search, boats using sonar equipment located the car about five metres from the northern bank of the river at 3.25pm.
"A police operation is under way to recover the three occupants," a statement from NSW Police said.
The child was earlier taken to Tweed Heads Hospital with cuts to her legs and neck pain. She is being comforted by family members.
"This little girl's run down the road and she's said ... her family has gone into the river," Mr Taylor said.
"She's only a little one, and her feet were bleeding apparently. They called the ambulance and called police."
Siblings Thomas and Sophie Grinham arrived at the scene with their father just after the car disappeared.
They told Seven News they watched as several men including their father tried to dive in to rescue the family trapped inside.
"We pulled up just after the car went under," Thomas said. "There was a little girl running along the road, around nine [years old]. She was screaming that her mum, little sister and older brother had gone into the river in the car.
"She couldn't say much."
Sophie said a woman who lived in a nearby house looked after the girl while the witnesses tried to mount their rescue effort.
"Dad and two other boys just jumped into the water and couldn't dive deep enough," Sophie said.
One local resident said that stretch of Dulguigan Road had been "treacherous" on Sunday following days of flooding.
Northern NSW towns including Lismore, Murwillumbah and Chinderah have experienced record-breaking floods over the past four days following unprecedented rainfall associated with ex-cyclone Debbie.
In Lismore, the river peaked at 11.6 metres on the weekend, its highest since 1974.
Two women have been killed by NSW floods. One was found on a flooded property about 20 kilometres south of Murwillumbah.
The body of the other woman, 64-year-old Jan Baihn, was found in a car swept off a causeway in the Hunter Valley.
Marc Austin, 45, refused to leave his caravan as flood waters rose around it in South Murwillumbah on Saturday. He was later found dead inside.
Matthew Roser, 46, died on Friday morning at his South Murwillumbah home after reportedly suffering a heart attack while trying to save his family's home from rising waters.
smh.com.au
