Farmer’s chilling final photo hours before tragedy struck: Victoria reels from storms and bushfires as a cyclone makes landfall in Australia’s north

An Australian dairy farmer shared an ominous image of the oncoming storm that claimed his life just hours later.

Bruce Manintveld was struck by a piece of metal picked up by the gale force winds that swept across his property in Mirboo North, Victoria’s South Gippsland, on Tuesday evening.

Severe storms hit parts of eastern Victoria this week as bushfires ravaged western parts of the state – while in the north of the country Tropical Cyclone Lincoln, the third cyclone of the year, made landfall on Friday evening.

Mr Manintveld had tragically shared a video of menacing dark clouds gathering over his farm around 4pm on Thursday, along with a weather map.

He captioned the tweet with just one ominous word: “Incoming” before heading out to move livestock to safety and being beaten to death around 6 p.m.

Mr Manintveld was the only reported victim of the wild storms when a massive clean-up campaign started at the end of this week and is expected to continue into the weekend.

On Wednesday evening, Mr Manintveld’s family took over his X account to announce the tragic news of his death.

“Bruce passed away shortly after his last Twitter post on Tuesday evening,” she wrote.

‘He raced against the storm to bring in the cows.

“He rolled the dice and lost. But that’s farming… you roll the dice, normally he wins. Not this time. A man who loved his cows.’

Livestock farmer and farming lawyer Gillian Fennell offered her condolences and paid tribute to Mr Fennell in replies.

“Oh my god, Fiona, my deepest condolences to you,” Ms Fennell wrote.

‘I know that’s not enough. I’ve had many great conversations with Bruce and thoroughly enjoyed his company on this app.

‘I’m sure you already know this, but he was a great guy. If you need anything, please ask.”

Others also expressed their deep sadness at the tragic turn of events.

“Sorry to hear this, Fiona,” another X user wrote.

‘I will miss Bruce’s messages and barbs. He will be greatly missed by many on Twitter. RIP Bruce.”

Local basketball club Ferntree Gully Falcons also paid tribute to Mr Manintveld on Facebook.

“In memory of Bruce and to show our support for the Baker family, we ask that all Falcons teams wear black armbands for their games this Saturday and Sunday,” the club wrote.

Tuesday’s extreme winds flattened transmission towers, downed local power lines and shut down Victoria’s largest power station, the Loy Yang A.

More than 500,000 homes were without power on Tuesday, but by 5 p.m. on Friday that had dropped to just over 24,000.

Authorities expect most of the rest to be reconnected on Saturday.

More than a dozen houses were also made uninhabitable, with approx 16 homes in the South Gippsland community of Mirboo North have been badly damaged.

Victorian State Emergency Service boss Tim Wiebusch said the number could grow, with about 80 requests for assistance in the area still to be processed.

“The damage we are seeing here in Mirboo North has been replicated in many other parts of the state,” he told reporters on Friday.

‘This emergency is far from over. We will likely see these requests for assistance fulfilled for at least another two days.”

A shelter has been set up in Mirboo North to provide information, and has electricity generators and satellite internet.

In western Victoria, residents are also facing a natural disaster, with bushfires ravaging the Grampians and destroying about 44 properties.

Most of these properties were in the municipality of Pomonal, where they were local Damon Henricksen told it the ABC that around 20 percent of the local population had lost their homes, but fortunately all had been evacuated.

“Everyone got out safely, so that’s the most important thing,” he said.

“The first thing we have to do is try to support the community, the local businesses and the families so that everyone can get back on their feet.”

“People who know that beautiful part of the Grampians know that Pomonal is a small community, so that’s a significant part – maybe half the town has suffered losses.”

Two emergencies

Facing two emergencies in her state, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan announced on Friday there would only be compensation for blackout homes and businesses without power for at least seven days.

“Our focus is sharply on those households and communities that will be without power for extended periods,” she said.

Long-term power outage payments are $1,920 per week for households and $2,927 for businesses.

Waste charges will also be waived for taxpayers in 21 local government areas.

Gippsland South MP Danny O’Brien said Mirboo North residents were facing huge clean-up bills and needed more support than initial hardship and limited breakdown payments.

“Mirboo North is far beyond anything anyone else has ever seen,” the Nationals MP told reporters in the city.

“There has been a catastrophic event here and when you look at the damage it is absolutely as bad as a cyclone you would see in North Queensland.”

Energy Safe Victoria has launched an investigation into the factors that contributed to the collapse of six transmission towers, including that of provider AusNet.

“We will investigate whether AusNet is meeting its safety obligations, including its inspection and maintenance responsibilities,” the regulator said in a statement.

The Victorian communities of Devon North, Kilcunda and Krowera are still without any form of telecommunications, meaning they may not be able to make triple-zero calls.

The Herald Sun reported that leaked internal documents show that at one point on Tuesday, emergency callers had to wait more than a minute for firefighters to respond, up to six minutes for police and 23 minutes for the state emergency service.

But Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes said these figures were predictive of what would happen.

“The data shows no one waited longer than about three minutes for police calls,” she told Melbourne radio station 3AW.

Ms Allan said call takers were coming under pressure despite extra staff being added in anticipation of the catastrophic weather. SES call takers had their fourth busiest day and police call takers their busiest ever.

The third cyclone this year hits the north

Meanwhile, the last cyclone of the summer has hit northern Australia, bringing gale force winds and heavy rain.

Tropical Cyclone Lincoln crossed the coast between the Northern Territory-Queensland border and Port McArthur on Friday afternoon as a Category 1 system.

The cyclone is expected to move westwards across the Northern Territory this weekend.

Storms with damaging winds of up to 70mph are expected to develop along the coast between Bing Bong and Mornington Island during the day as the cyclone approaches and crosses the coast.

“As it moves inland this evening, the system is expected to weaken and begin moving westward over the central Northern Territory and then across northern Western Australia this weekend, bringing heavy rain to areas near its path.” , the Bureau of Meteorology said.

There is a chance it will reach waters west of the Kimberley by the middle of next week.

There is also a moderate risk of it becoming a tropical cyclone next Thursday.

Tropical Cyclone Jasper brought record-breaking rain and severe flooding to Far North Queensland over Christmas.

Kirrily made landfall late last month as a Category 3 storm.