After the entire state was left without power overnight, South Australia is enduring a second day of severe weather.
About 80,000 lightning strikes were recorded, some damaging electricity generation facilities, while destructive winds toppled more than 20 transmission towers.
Power was restored to the Adelaide area by 03:00 local time (17:30 GMT) but many remote rural areas remain cut off.
The state premier said, officials in charges of the power grid had told him “any system would not be able to cope with a weather system of this kind”.
“We had winds which were so strong that when they hit power lines they created such energy they were tearing the towers out of the ground.”
