Three dead as severe storm with cyclone winds in New South Wales causes flash floods and power blackouts across region and Sydney

The storm has pounded the Australian region since Monday leaving people trapped in their cars and homes

An uprooted tree crashed into a car during the storm in suburban Sydney (Getty Images )

Three people have been found dead as a severe storm lashing southeast Australia has caused flash floods, destroyed homes and stranded dozens of people, officials have said.

Three people, one woman and two men, were found dead on Tuesday in the town of Dungog, where at least one home was swept away.

Police said they are trying to determine how the two men and one woman, all elderly, died, though local reports said they were trapped in their homes as floodwaters rose.

“We’ve got a lot of low-lying houses in the township near rivers and unfortunately a lot of those houses have gone under,” Dungog Shire community centre manager Sarah U’Brien told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Emergency officials have received over 4,000 calls for help and rescued nearly 50 people, New South Wales state premier Mike Baird said.

Three hospitals were left without power on Tuesday and left to rely on generators, while 45 schools were closed.

The storm, which has been pounding Sydney and New South Wales since Monday, has seen cyclone-strength winds knock out power lines, peel off roofs and uproot trees that have then crashed into cars and houses, leaving around 200,000 homes and businesses without electricity.

Huge waves – some reaching 11.2 metres (33 feet) offshore – have pounded beaches and people have caught footage of the roads getting flooded by the strong waves.

Many of Sydney’s roads have been flooded and the city’s harbour was forced to close to commercial shipping, forcing a cruise ship with 2,500 passengers on board to wait out the storm off the coast while being battered by big swells.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology showed nearly a month’s worth of rain fell in Sydney in the space of 24 hours.

Mr Baird urged bosses to be flexible and allow people to head home early as conditions were forecast to get worse.

“It is a huge storm event that is wreaking havoc across New South Wales at the moment. Again, what our priority has to be at the moment is to get through the next few hours and protect life at every opportunity,” he said.

Additional reporting by agencies