Horror images show ‘mini tornado’ carnage after Sydney’s Northern Beaches were battered by storm
A Sydney apartment building had its roof ripped off and carried away by a ‘mini tornado’ as a freak five-minute storm swept over the city.
One person has died and two others are critically injured in hospital after wild weather thrashed the NSW capital on Sunday afternoon.
The Northern Beaches were lashed by extreme conditions which saw homes torn apart, power lines ripped from their structures and a trampoline blown into the ocean.
Winds peaked at 80km/h and emergency services received hundreds of calls, with as many as 25,000 residents to be without power late into Sunday night – with the worst of the damage seen around Narrabeen, but also Dee Why and Mona Vale.
A Northern Beaches apartment building had its roof ripped off and carried away by a ‘mini tornado’ as a freak five-minute storm swept over the city
Winds peaked at 80km/h on Sunday afternoon which saw the Dee Why unit have its roof completely ripped off the building and carried away
Debris scattered the streets causing heavy damage to properties and vehicles after the freak five-minute storm cell hit
Lifesavers swam out through crashing waves to get a trampoline which had been blown from a nearby backyard all the way to the waterfront
Pictures show the devastation caused by the choatic storm with carnage scattered across Sydney’s picturesque coastline.
Side-by-side images of the same stretch in the Dee Why show barely visible buildings being lashed by heavy rainfall and wind.
Debris and what appears to be an awning then comes into shot, smashing into parked vehicles.
Shocking footage of a nearby apartment building in the beachside suburb shows a roof being stripped and sucked away by heavy winds.
Trees can be seen thrashing back and forth in the clip posted to Reddit, before the roof of the Northern Beaches unit block rips off and is carried away by cyclonic winds.
‘I think this is a tornado, oh my god!’ a person in the video can be heard screaming.
Pictures show the devastation caused by the choatic storm with carnage scattered across Sydney’s picturesque coastline
Two kids watch from Narrabeen Lake after trees were uprooted and smashed into a ute parked near the shore
A Sydney apartment building had its roof ripped off and carried away by a ‘mini tornado’ as a freak five-minute storm swept over the city
Other locals say they were struggling to walk and drive as the storm cell swept through the area.
‘I was on the beach at Mona Vale when this hit and I almost got blown over trying to walk back to the car,’ another social media user posted.
‘Didn’t realise how bad it was cos it was over by the time I got in the car and started driving.’
Other pictures from the Northern Beaches show massive trees uprooted and stripped of leaves, laid bare across roads and destroyed vehicles.
One resident reported hearing screams after a tree fell and trapped several people inside a car.
Police confirmed in a statement a woman in her 70s had died in Royal North Shore Hospital as a result of the freak storm that hit just after 3:30pm.
Two other people remain in a critical condition.
Emergency services clean up the devastation left after the crazy weather slammed Sydney’s north on Sunday
Several cars were crushed by falling trees with one Northern Beaches resident hearing screaming coming from a vehicle
Trees thrashed in the cyclonic winds as the storm tore through Sydney on Sunday afternoon – with one woman dying
Police described the fatality as ‘tragic’ and said the women that were injured were simply ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’.
‘As you can imagine the patients had multiple injuries after being hit by falling branches and other debris,’ Inspector Christie Marks said.
‘We worked to treat them at the scene and get them to hospital for further care.
‘Given the size of this tree it’s remarkable that there weren’t more people injured.’
There are power outages across the region, with SES and emergency services receiving calls throughout Sunday evening.
Trees cover a footpath on the Northern Beaches after a wild storm caused mass devestation
Locals begin cleaning up their streets on Sunday evening after the freak storm lashed the area
The Dee Why apartment building was ripped open exposing homes in the top floor on Sunday afternoon
More than 25,000 people will be without power until late into Sunday evening after the freak weather conditions tore down local power lines.
There remains severe thunderstorm alerts in place for large parts of Sydney, Newcastle, Gosford, Wollongong and Bathurst as a storm cell sweeps over south-eastern NSW.
Experts are predicting strong winds will continue to batter the state into the night, with police urging people not to enter dangerous areas.
Temperatures peaked at 35.8 degrees on Sunday and will remain in the high 20s on Monday and Tuesday in welcome news for sun-starved Sydneysiders.
