At least two people have been hit after a huge fig tree fell in Sydney’s centre amid strong winds.
The large tree in Hyde Park crashed to the ground across a footpath and on to a busy street at about 3pm on Friday.
The police officers who were first on the scene combed through a sea of branches and foliage to determine if anyone had become trapped underneath.
Emergency services said no one appeared to have been seriously injured in the incident.
Two people with minor injuries were taken to nearby St Vincent’s hospital for treatment, a New South Wales ambulance spokesperson said.
The tree on the park’s edge, near St James station, appeared to have split in two before crashing across the nearby footpath.
Two people were hit by the branches and knocked to the ground while onlookers ran to their aid, according to one witness.
The man, who identified himself as Chris, said he was walking along Elizabeth Street when he heard the crack of the tree and saw it crash on to a woman.
“There was a gust of wind and the tree has just fallen,” he said. “A lady was in the middle of it. If she had been a few metres back or a few metres forward it would have ended a lot worse.
“But she walked away with a couple of scratches, so she got really lucky. It’s such a high-traffic area but everyone got away, luckily.”
Emergency services, including at least three ambulance crews, were sent to the scene with police diverting vehicles as the tree blocked two lanes of southbound traffic.
Police rescue crews were considering whether to chop the tree into pieces in order to clear the road.
Staff from the nearby Sheraton hotel ran across the road to help victims and search for anyone else who had been injured.
Onlookers were warned to stay away from other trees out of fears they could also fall.
Andrew Edwards, a spokesperson for the NSW SES, said there had been 4,767 incidents in the state since the wild weather began on Wednesday, including a significant amount of damage in Sydney alone, with 2,130 callouts made and 600 callouts still to be attended by the SES.
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In Sydney, at least 20 trees have fallen on to properties, at least 105 houses have been damaged and 1,179 trees have fallen on to roads and pathways.
The Hunter region in NSW has also been significantly affected, with at least 55,000 still affected by power outages in the area.
The Bureau of Meteorology said rain was expected to continue into Saturday along large swathes of the NSW coast.
On Friday, meteorologist Sarah Scully said a severe weather warning had been issued extending from NSW’s mid-north coast through the Hunter to the Sydney metropolitan region. Damaging winds, averaging 60kmh, but gusting up to 90kmh, were forecast.
“The heavy rainfall is expected to continue overnight tonight [Friday] into Saturday.
“We also have coastal hazards warning for damaging surf extending from the mid-north coast all the way down to the Illawarra for very heavy surf that’s likely to cause coastal erosion, particularly around the exposed coasts.”
At the SCG, where the Sydney Sixers were hosting the Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash cricket league, part of the Bill O’Reilly grandstand fell from the roof in the wind, forcing a section of the stand to be evacuated. A section of roof sheeting flapped precariously in the wind, before falling in the stand.
No one was injured, with that section of the ground left empty as play – in hazardous winds – got under way.
– Krishani Dhanji and Ben Doherty contributed reporting
