Christmas evening turned into a nightmare in Australia. A storm killed a woman in the east of the country, where around 120,000 homes are without electricity, authorities announced on Tuesday.
A 59-year-old woman died after a tree fell in gusty winds in the Gold Coast city region, Jaye Newton of the emergency ambulance service said. “It was like a disaster area, there were trees all over the road,” he said.
“Catastrophic damage”
The storm knocked out power lines around Brisbane, the regional capital of Queensland, said local electricity supplier Energex, which noted “catastrophic and widespread damage, on the scale of a cyclone. » “More than 800 power lines knocked out, 120,000 customers without electricity, it will take days to restore service,” the company wrote on X.
The Australian Meteorological Services are forecasting another severe episode of thunderstorms, with gusty winds, hailstones and heavy precipitation, for the day on Tuesday. They have issued a flood alert for a river approximately 40 kilometers from the Gold Coast.