Hundreds of thousands of homes have been left without power in Australia and thousands of Victorians have made calls for assistance as storms caused chaos across the state, Report informs referring to Sky News Australia.
Victoria was hit with winds of up to 146km/h on Sunday night and Monday morning, with the Melbourne suburbs of St Kilda, Essendon and Frankston experiencing gusts consistently above 100km/h.
The extreme weather led to the death of a 63-year-old woman after a tree fell on a cabin near the NSW-Victorian border.
The State Emergency Service (SES) responded to more than a thousand calls for assistance after 130,000 homes were left without power.
Power outages were reported across the state, with 180,000 homes and businesses affected.
More than 120,000 Victorians were still without power at 11am on Monday, with 92,000 being AusNet customers in the state's east, and almost 17,000 CitiPower customers in Melbourne and the western half of Victoria also experiencing outages.
Victoria’s SES responded to more than 2,800 calls between 7pm Sunday and midday Monday. The majority of these were due to fallen trees and property damage.
Public transport commuters were also affected by the storms, with “power outages and debris on the tracks” resulting in the Sandringham line being almost completely shut down and major delays reported on the Frankston, Pakenham and Cranbourne lines.