Man dies after tree falls on car amid severe winds in Australia

Sydney, Aug 28 (IANS/GURPUNEET SIDHU):- A man has died and a woman has been admitted to hospital after a tree fell on their car in the Australian state of Victoria on Wednesday amid severe winds. Victoria Police said in a statement on Wednesday that emergency services were called to Gellibrand, a town approximately 150 kilometers southwest of Melbourne, after a tree fell onto the car, trapping both occupants, Xinhua news agency repoted. Police said the male driver of the car died at the scene and the female passenger has been airlifted to hospital in a critical condition. “Both are yet to be formally identified and the exact circumstances surrounding the incident are being investigated,” said the police. The vehicle was travelling along Gellibrand’s Main Road around 1.30 p.m. local time when the tree fell as damaging winds exceeding 100 kilometres per hour swept across the state. The State Emergency Service in Victoria responded to over 1,000 requests for help in the 24 hours to Wednesday afternoon, 800 of them related to fallen trees. In the city of Dandenong southeast of Melbourne, a woman was rescued from her caravan after a tree fell on it and trapped her. Angus Hines, a senior meteorologist from the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), said that conditions were expected to ease on Wednesday evening but warned that winds would again strengthen late on Thursday and persist through the weekend. “We are likely to see a similar repeat pattern appear in a couple of days,” he said in an official update. “We have got more weather systems waiting in the wings ready to rush across southeastern Australia, which will bring another pulse of strong winds.” He warned that power outages were possible over the coming days due to the strong winds. —