New death cases were recorded after severe asthma in Melbourne, Australia following the thunderstorm last Monday.
The number of deaths from Melbourne, Australia thunderstorm asthma event has risen to eight, after two more people have died.
The thunderstorm last Monday caused unusual outbreak of severe asthma after it saw extreme winds and air moisture break up pollen particles into pieces small enough to enter people’s lungs.
According to the report, the rain and strong winds also churned up pollen, dust and other irritants in the air, causing a huge increase in calls to Ambulance Victoria in just a few hours.
The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday said two more people had died, while another patient remained in a critical condition in a hospital and was receiving specialist care.
Aside from this, hospitals are also continuing to treat seven people for a variety of respiratory and related conditions after the thunderstorm last week.
Last Monday, the SES received more than 350 calls for assistance after the severe weather change hit around 6pm in Melbourne. The incident caused a number of buildings to be damaged, roof tiles ripped off houses and cars were also damaged.
About 1,900 triple zero calls between 6pm and 11pm were received by the ambulance service received, compared with an average of 345 calls for that period.
Mick Stephenson, Ambulance Victoria’s executive director of emergency operations, said most calls were for patients in the west of Melbourne.
Because of this, the emergency services and hospitals were overwhelmed. An unprecedented 1,900 emergency calls in five hours that evening were dealt with paramedics with as the phenomenon swept the state.
There were 140 code-one cases occurring at the same time at one point. From Monday to Tuesday, Melbourne hospitals treated more than 8,500 patients.
Among the victims, four of them were been identified namely: Noble Park father-of-two Clarence Leo, 35-year-old Apollo Papadopoulos, law student Hope Carnevali, 20, and year 12 student Omar Moujalled.