Brisbane residents will continue their clean-up on Sunday after the city was pummelled by a severe thunderstorm on Saturday. Six thousand homes and businesses were left without lights and power on Saturday afternoon after the storm turned ''day into night'' about 11am.
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The city was bucketed by 10 millimetres of rain in just 10 minutes and buffeted by winds gusting up to 70km/h, according to Weatherzone.
The mercury plunged seven degrees in 10 minutes and there were more than 4000 lightning strikes within 80 kilometres of Brisbane in less than two hours.
The Queensland SES responded to more than 60 calls, mostly from residents asking for help with leaking roofs and fallen trees, and there were major delays on all train lines as a result of power outages.
In Ipswich, a small grass fire was sparked when lightning struck a crane next to the city's hospital just after 10am, but the rain extinguished it, a Department of Community Services spokeswoman said.
In Ann Street in the city centre, a hotel roof collapsed. ''It turned day into night,'' an SES worker said. ''It came quickly and then it left.''
The storm initially left about 11,000 homes and businesses without power across Brisbane, Ipswich and Somerset, a spokeswoman for Energex said.
with AAP
