ONE man was dead, several people were in hospital and hundreds of thousands of households were without power after gale-force winds battered the eastern seaboard yesterday.

A helicopter search for two swimmers feared swept out to sea in appalling conditions off Sydney’s northern beaches was called off last night and is to begin again at daybreak. Emergency crews found no trace of the two men, believed to be without wetsuits.

An ambulance spokeswoman described the scene at Towradgi, a suburb of Wollongong, as “a battlefield”. An 80-year-old man was seriously injured after being blown off his roof and was flown to Sydney by helicopter.

Emergency Operation Centres were activated in the Shoalhaven and Wollongong as part of a major incident plan involving government and private agencies.

A 150km swath from Berry to Ulladulla on the NSW south coast were left without power by the storm.

In Victoria, winds hit 120km/h at Port Phillip Bay, while gusts hit 131km/h in northern Wollongong, NSW.

The extreme weather was caused by an intense low pressure system off Tasmania, which saw the island state buffeted with high winds and flash flooding.

The Victorian State Emergency Service responded to more than 1400 calls, with the hardest-hit areas being across Melbourne’s southeast and the Mornington Peninsula. Most calls were from homes hit by floods or roof damage.

In the nation’s capital, wild winds brought down powerlines and uprooted trees. The Canberra television station WIN went off air.

In NSW, more than 600 State Emergency Service personnel were attending 4400 call-outs, repairing damage from trees and branches smashing down on to houses, cars and across roads.

A man was killed at St Ives on Sydney’s north shore when a tree crushed his car after he stopped to check a street directory. Another occupant of the car was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital after being trapped for an hour. Rescuers said live powerlines brought down by the wind made the rescue extremely difficult.

Among the worst-hit Sydney suburbs were Botany Bay in the south, Randwick in the east and Mosman on the north shore, where a man was taken to hospital with head injuries. A 12-year-old boy was also taken to hospital after being trapped under a tree for more than half an hour in Sydney’s south.

In the Illawara region south of Sydney, a whole family was temporarily trapped when their house collapsed, while the old Telstra building in Wollongong lost its roof.

Sections of the roof at Aussie Stadium in inner-Sydney Moore Park also came lose, forcing the evacuation of nearby premises.

NSW SES spokesman Peter O’Neill said the the winds had caused significant damage from Wollongong to Newcastle, and as far inland as Bathurst, in thecentral west of the state, where a three-year- old boy suffered a fractured skull when a tree fell on his cubbyhouse.