Daily London
The clean-up has begun after destructive storms tore through parts of Queensland, ripping the roof off a wedding venue and causing chaos at a school fete.
The south-east was bracing for more damage tonight amid warnings “very dangerous thunderstorms” could bring giant hail and destructive winds.
Hail measuring seven and eight centimetres was recorded just after 5pm today west of Brisbane, less than 24 hours after wild weather wreaked havoc on on couple’s wedding day.
Descending on what was supposed to a be a happy couple’s best day of their lives, a monster storm of hail, wind, lightning and torrential rain pummelled straight into a country wedding on Saturday night.
Wedding guest Maddison Hogarth said it “went from zero to 100 really, really quickly”.
A total of 200 nervous guests took shelter from what they say felt like a tornado inside a shed in Camboon in the shire of Banana, inland from Bundaberg.
“There was a lot of fear, a lot of crying, a lot of screaming,” Hogarth said.
But the group soon realised it wouldn’t hold.
“One of my girlfriends, she had her little baby with her, she made the call to bunker under a steel table because she was so scared,” an emotional Hogarth said.
“We had people in cold rooms, we had to put kids in cold rooms. I’ve got goosebumps, it was pretty hard.”
The building was flattened with people still inside but somehow nobody was seriously injured.
“It was insane, very, very chaotic and very scary,” she said
Isabelle Drake barely escaped the line of fire at Esk State School’s fair.
Her partner Caleb Ballard’s injuries are too graphic to show, but he’s smiling through the pain.
“I have quite a few welts and bruises along my back and my right hand is pretty swollen.” he said.
Nine people were treated for injuries despite severe storm warnings issued days in advance.
Nearby homes were also in the firing line.
“It literally felt like a tornado and I haven’t been in a tornado, but the noise and the destruction was terrible,” Anne Petersen said.
Storms continue across Queensland
More massive hail, this time up to eight centimetres, hit parts of the state this afternoon and evening
The Bureau of Meteorology said the monster hail hit in the rural areas of Yarraman and Googa Creek, near Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.
As night fell, the bureau warned a “very dangerous thunderstorm” was west of the Sunshine coast and surging north from Blackbutt towards Nanango.
It was “likely to produce large, possibly giant hailstones, damaging, locally destructive winds and heavy, locally intense rainfall that may lead to dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding”.
By 8pm (9pm AEDT), it was heading towards Kingaroy and Gympie.
Other storms were heading east towards Beaudesert, Mount Tamborine and Nerang.
Severe thunderstorms were possible across all of south-east Queensland, rolling as far as north-east NSW.
A severe thunderstorm warning issued for parts of the Central Highlands and Coalfields was cancelled.
The storms weren’t expected to ease until Tuesday.
