110,000 Victorians without power following violent storms

A tree has burst into flames and a power line exploded in terrifying footage to emerge after violent storms lashed parts of Australia.

It comes as more than 100,000 Victorians remain without power as a result of the storms amid concern the electricity crisis could stretch into next week.

Emergency crews responded to dozens of calls for help after torrential rains and severe winds knocked down trees and powerlines and tore apart buildings.

Wind gusts exceeded 110km per hour in some areas, with conditions leaving 518,000 Victorians without power for much of Friday.

Terrifying footage uploaded to Tik Tok showed a tree catch on fire and a power line explode during the storms, as severe winds pushed trees into dangerous positions.

Further footage uploaded to the social media platform also showed multiple garage doors in a home complex in Melbourne near buckled from their hinges.

The Australian Energy Market Operator on Saturday said there was still around 110,000 properties across the state without electricity, due to the winds and heavy rainfall.

The energy operator predicted some homes would be without power for the rest of the weekend and potentially into early next week.

Melbourne’s outer east and northern suburbs along with eastern and northeastern Victoria remain the hardest hit, with more than 61,000 people without power.

Homes in the outer western suburbs, central and western Victorian as well as southeast Melbourne and Mornington Peninsula had more than 40,000 people without power on Saturday morning.

Hundreds in Melbourne’s CBD and inner suburbs remained affected, with around 5,000 in northwestern Melbourne also without electricity.

“Network crews have restored the power to more than 400,000 properties, enduring challenging weather conditions, falling trees and access issues to repair damaged power lines and critical energy infrastructure,” AEMO said.

“Victorians travelling this weekend should consider their plans to visit areas of significant storm damage, flooding and electricity outages.”

The havoc comes after severe storms right across eastern and southern Australia over Thursday night and Friday morning, with homes across Adelaide and Sydney also affected.

Storms in Melbourne ripped roofs off houses, tore trees from the ground and flipped a truck over on a major Melbourne road.

Emergency services responded to dozens of calls for help, mostly to do with tree damage, trees falling down and building damage.

Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said clean-up efforts were mainly concentrated around Berwick, in Melbourne’s south-east, down to the Mornington Peninsula.

He said the Frankston, Sorrento and Hastings emergency crews had had over 500 requests for assistance.

There had also been 5000 of requests through Forest Fire Management Victoria for help.

“They can basically be split up into about 4000 related to trees, so trees down, trees across powerlines and drive ways,” he said.

“The other thousand is in relation to building damage. And that’s through from quite minor to around several houses being classed as uninhabitable.”

Temperatures are expected to improve in Melbourne in the coming days, with no severe weather warnings currently issued for the state.

But severe weather is expected to hit northern NSW and southern QLD over the next few days, with another severe weather system predicted to move through the northeastern states.

The bureau on Friday issued severe thunderstorm warnings, including damaging winds, large hail and heavy rain, for southern Queensland‘s Central West, Channel Country and Maranoa and Warrego districts.

The same warning was issued for much of northeast NSW, including North West Slopes and Plains and parts of Mid North Coast, Hunter and Northern Tablelands.

Storms will continue for northern New South Wales and southern Queensland before the trough bounces up into Queensland during Saturday, bringing the risk of storms to Brisbane.

rhiannon.tuffield@news.com.au