Severe storm causes blackouts, damage in Australian state of Victoria

SYDNEY, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) — Thousands of people in the Australian state of Victoria have been left without power following damaging storms.
As of Monday morning, there were 24 unplanned outages in the electricity network affecting 2,800 homes and businesses in northern and eastern Victoria after severe weather swept across the state on Sunday evening, according to energy company AusNet Services.
The State Emergency Service (SES) reported receiving 471 calls for assistance in the 24 hours to Monday morning, with intense winds causing widespread damage.
Of the calls for assistance to the SES, 261 were related to fallen trees, 130 to building damage and 39 to flooding and property damage.
A severe thunderstorm alert was issued on Sunday night for Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, warning of damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rainfall.
Winds exceeding 100 km per hour (kph) were recorded at the Melbourne Airport as the storm hit the city at 6:15 p.m. local time (0815 GMT) and gusts of almost 150 kph were recorded elsewhere in the state.
“It’s a very dynamic and dangerous situation,” SES state duty officer Andrew Feagan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Sunday afternoon.
“There’s large hail, three to five centimeter hail, that is very, very dangerous and can potentially cause life-threatening injuries.”
The Bureau of Meteorology said that the worst of the storm would pass through Victoria on Sunday night and at 4:30 a.m. local time on Monday (1830 GMT on Sunday) canceled a severe weather warning that was in place for the state’s east.
Melbourne is forecast to reach a maximum temperature of 18 degrees Celsius on Monday and 20 on Tuesday with strong winds. ■