Hundreds of thousands without power in S. Australia after major storm

Hundreds of thousands of South Australians went without power on Wednesday after a severe storm hit the state overnight, causing damage to cars, properties, cell phone towers and traffic services.

More than 120,000 homes remain without power, 45 cell phone towers are believed to be not working and around 4,500 customers are without Internet after a storm cell ripped through northern parts of the state overnight, toppling trees and causing extensive property damage.

Spokesman from South Australian (SA) Power Networks, Paul Roberts said hundreds of power lines had been damaged, meaning tens of thousands of homes could be without power for more than 24 hours.

"The damage is very significant," Roberts said on Wednesday. "(Not lying), people are going to be without power until tomorrow."

Roberts said 117 millimeters of rain lashed South Australia, while winds up to 100 km per hour battered northern parts of the state, but emergency workers were working hard to repair the damage.

"While we have co-ordinated a major response from crews, delays to restoration are likely due to the extensive and widespread nature of outages, safety issues and localized flooding," he said.

"Estimated restoration times are likely to change as we receive more reports of outages and prioritize restoration."

The storm is the second in the past three months to cause major and widespread outages across the southern state, the first of which occurred in September and inflamed tensions between state Premier Jay Weatherill and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

More than a million people were left without power and the state's reliance on renewable energies was called into question. Endit