Nine injured as hail hits school fair, thousands lose power in SEQ storms

Nine people have been injured by hailstones at a school fair north-west of Brisbane, as severe storms ripped through the region and were expected to continue into the night.

After a morning of blue skies, parts of south-east Queensland were pelted with blasts of hail and heavy rain on Saturday afternoon, with lightning strikes and strong winds cutting power to thousands of homes.

At Esk State School’s 150th anniversary fair, paramedics treated nine people for injuries.

One woman was taken to Ipswich Hospital with head and neck injuries. A man in his 20s, with minor injuries, was taken to Gatton Hospital, and two women – one in her 20s and another in her 30s – were taken to hospitals privately, also with minor injuries.

The five other injured people were treated at the school and were not taken to hospital.

Giant hail more than five centimetres in diameter was reported in several towns in Queensland, including Yuleba, Helidon, Nobby and Clifton. Norwood Station in western Queensland reported eight-centimetre hail stones and Pratten on the Southern Downs saw hail nine centimetres in size.

As of 6pm, almost 3000 properties in south-east Queensland were still without power.

Heavy rain, thunder and lightning struck Brisbane’s CBD and surrounding suburbs about 3pm. While conditions appeared to ease by 4pm with a burst of sunshine after the rain, the bureau warned storms could continue into the evening.

The weather bureau’s meteorologist Angus Hines said earlier the severe storms could bring “a whole array of weather hazards, including heavy to intense rainfall that can bring flash flooding, damaging destructive wind gusts and large to giant-size hail”.

“When it comes to the wind, there is even an outside chance that we could see a tornado or two touch down with the most intense, most severe thunderstorm cells later on today,” Hines said.

BOM warned residents to be alert to potential strong winds, with the strength to bring down branches and entire trees.

“Those trees, of course, can fall onto cars, fall onto houses, and cause significant damage to property,” Hines said.

“We can also see dangerous travel conditions, flooded roads, and possible isolation of streets and locations if that heavy rain does close several roads.”

The threat of another severe weather event has been brewing all week, following a destructive storm that struck parts of south-east Queensland last Sunday.

Hines said Saturday’s storms could continue into the night and potentially the early hours of Sunday morning in some areas.

The risk of rain and storm activity would remain for the rest of the weekend, but was not predicted to be as severe as on Saturday.

“It is going to be a very active weekend when it comes to thunderstorms, but Saturday is the key day with the extensive, potentially severe outbreak and high-end hazardous weather.”

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