About 26,000 households were without power in south-east Queensland on Monday morning after a severe thunderstorm passed over the state, with wind gusts topping 109km/h. Residents reported giant hailstones of up to 7cm in some areas.

More than 1,300 energy customers in Victoria also woke without power, after Melbourne recorded its wettest day in a year and a half. Many of those outages were resolved by early Monday afternoon.

Energex, which distributes power to 1.5m homes and businesses in south-east Queensland , said the storms had caused “significant damage”, bringing wires down across the greater Brisbane region. On Sunday night the company said almost 70 crews were working to restore power.

“This afternoon’s storm has absolutely smashed our network!” the state-owned company w

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