SYDNEY, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- Extreme weather events, including thunderstorms and bushfires, have lashed through the Australian state of Victoria, with one farmer dead, homes lost and hundreds of thousands of households in power outages.
During a press conference in the State Control Center, Premier of Victoria Jacinta Allan confirmed on Wednesday that a dairy farmer in Mirboo North was killed in the storm that lashed through South Gippsland overnight.
"As at 10:30 a.m. today, Victoria SES (State Emergency Service) has received up to 4,600 requests for assistance since 9:00 a.m. yesterday, all directly related to the storm event that went through the state. Also at 10:30 a.m. this morning, there were still 220,000 customers remaining off power across the state, down from the peak outages yesterday of more than 530,000," Allan noted.
Meanwhile, the combination of hot, windy and dry conditions, together with lightning strikes right across the state, resulted in a lot of work for emergency agencies to deal with fires triggered by those lightning strikes.
"We have multiple fires across the state and most particularly up in the Wimmera," said the state's Emergency Management Commissioner Rick Nugent.
"The Ballfield fire from the Grampians that impacted on the Pomonal Township had a quite significant impact. There the fire moved at a fast rate of speed and spotted forward which then resulted in a number of residential homes being burned. Impact assessments are still underway," he added.
Five firefighters were also injured while responding to the blaze at Pomonal near the Grampians National Park.
According to the state premier, Tuesday was only the second day since the flames of Black Saturday in 2009, 15 years ago, that had a catastrophic fire danger rating.
"I would like to extend my thoughts and sympathies to the many thousands of Victorians who have been impacted by this extreme weather event," said Allan.
"There are some particularly in the west of the state, who experienced those terrible fire experiences that went through the state, who have spent the night at a relief center and don't know if they've got a home to go to today," she added. ■
