SEVERAL people were injured, dozens of homes were damaged and power was cut off to large areas as storms lashed coastal regions of the eastern states yesterday.

In NSW, gale warnings were issued for all coastal waters after violent wind storms caused havoc across parts of Sydney, Newcastle, Wollongong and the central coast. More than 120,000 households were without power.

The State Emergency Service was called out to more than 2500 incidents.

A small regatta was caught in the tempest at Nelson Bay, north of Newcastle, where police confirmed 28 people were swept into the water. No one was hurt. More than 60 houses, a motel and a resort were damaged in Port Stephens.

The central-western towns of Parkes, Bathurst, Oberon and Forbes were buffeted, while Wyong on the central coast and the Blue Mountains were also in the storm’s path.

There were numerous incidents across Sydney, with the western suburbs the worst hit. Police evacuated 30 residents from a block of flats in the south-western suburb of Canley Vale after the roof was ripped off.

At St Mary’s, a bus shelter was picked up by a mini-twister and cartwheeled into a bus parked 50m away. A motorcyclist was taken to Nepean hospital with serious injuries after a tree fell on him at Mulgoa on Sydney’s outer-west fringe.

Strong wind warnings were also issued for Victorian coastal waters west of Cape Otway and for Port Phillip and Western Port.

SES units were dispatched across Melbourne to deal with falling branches and wind damage. The area worst hit was a band stretching through Melbourne’s southeastern suburbs from Frankston to Lilydale.

In Queensland, two exhausted scuba divers were rescued after being lost in rough seas off the coast for two hours. An air and sea search began just after midday when the inexperienced divers failed to return to their boat during an outing to the Aarhus shipwreck, northeast of Cape Moreton. A rescue helicopter spotted the pair about three nautical miles east of their original position.