MELBOURNE, Australia — A vast lake created by floodwaters will spread across southeastern Australia and threaten rural towns in its path for up to 10 more days, an official said Saturday as the nation’s flood crisis continued to create havoc and destruction.

The flooding began more than a month ago in Australia’s northeast Queensland state, where 30 people died, more than 30,000 homes were damaged or destroyed and at least 3 billion Australian dollars ($3 billion) in crops and coal exports have been lost.

Record rains have shifted the emergency focus to southeast Victoria state, which is usually parched during the southern summer.

State Emergency Service spokesman Lachlan Quick said a lake about 55 miles long northwest of the Victorian capital Melbourne would continue coursing inland for the next seven to 10 days until it spills into the Murray River.

The flood was about 22 miles from the river, SES said.

Quick said 75 towns in the state have been affected by flooding and another five to 10 towns are still in the floodwaters’ northern path across flat wheat-growing country.

Almost 2,000 homes and businesses were flooded or isolated and close to 5,000 people have been evacuated, SES said.

“It’s not moving as one big, swamping wall, it’s not a wave as such,” Quick said. “It’s just a big, wide, long swathe of water.”

At this time of year, Victoria is usually tinder dry and at the peak of its wildfire season. The state was the scene of Australia’s worst wildfire disaster on Feb. 7, 2009, when firestorms killed 173 people, scorched some 1,300 square miles of land and razed 2,000 homes — including entire towns.