RESIDENTS have told of their terror after tornadoes with wind speeds of up to 254km/h smashed Victoria's northeast, leaving 20 people injured including two critically.

Powerful storms hit several towns including Yarrawonga, Mulwala, Bundalong, Rutherglen and Euroa about 8pm, the SES said.

Homes were flattened, caravan parks were destroyed, and commercial buildings were damaged across the region.

The Bureau of Meteorology said at least two tornadoes touched down, one in Euroa and the other in Yarrawonga.

Gallery: See pictures of the devastation here



Bundalong, a town of about 300 on the Murray River, bore the brunt of the wild weather with the devastation described as "absolutely incredible".

Moira Shire Mayor Brian Keenan said he had never seen such extensive damage in his four decades as an SES and CFA brigade leader.

He said several houses at Bundalong had been completely destroyed, while many others had suffered some damage.

"You would think an atom bomb went off," Mr Keenan said.

"There was a horrific noise. You could hear it coming and you could see the mini-tornado coming towards the towns.

"One woman from Bundalong was sheltering in her house when the roof blew off. You can imagine the ordeal people are going through and the massive clean-up ahead."

Mr Keenan said several huge trees had been ripped out of the ground, and several hundred metres of power lines had fallen.

"How there wasn't lives lost is beyond me," he said.

"If anyone was on that last section of road coming into the town from Yarrawonga, they would have been killed."

Mr Keenan said the town was full of emergency services workers cleaning up the mess.

"I suspect it'll look a different scene tonight," he said.

One man was filling his car with petrol in Euroa when a tornado caused the Shell service station to collapse.

“The tornado came to my car - I actually thought it was going to pick my car up," the man, Daniel, told 3AW.

"I was stuck inside the car outside the actual service station, and everything around me just collapsed on top of my car”.

Dozens of residents remain unable to return to their properties, with the clean-up expected to take days.

Ambulance Victoria spokesman Peter Swan said paramedics responded to dozens of calls, with some people suffering serious injuries from flying debris.

"We are on standby expecting that there may be other patients around," he said.

"This is certainly a very unusual event to occur in Victoria."

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Manager of Emergency Management Jon Byrne said paramedics treated and transported 20 people to Yarrawonga Hospital, including four who were then taken to Melbourne by air ambulance.

A man in his 50s is in a critical condition in the Royal Melbourne Hospital with head, pelvis and abdominal injuries.

Another man in his 50s is in a critical condition in The Alfred Hospital suffering head injuries.

A man and woman aged in their 70s are in the Royal Melbourne with broken bones after their caravan flipped over in the strong winds. And a man aged in his 40s is suffering spinal injuries after a tree smashed onto his car.

"With an incident like this, there is always the potential to be faced with mass casualties," Mr Byrne said.

"Other patients were treated by paramedics for injuries including cuts and fractures. Many of them had been hit by flying debris."

Yarrawonga District Health Service chief executive officer Terry Welch said the hospital had put patients up in hotel rooms to free up beds.

"We've really pulled on every resource we can," he said.

"We've paid for hotels for those that we could because we needed the bed capacity."

The SES received more than 150 calls for help in the region, and about 1000 from across the state.

The main streets of Rutherglen and Yarrawonga both suffered widespread damage, a SES spokesman said.

"This is certainly some of the fiercest weather I've seen, and some of the more experienced hands have echoed that view," he said.

Ambulance Victoria's Stephen Ralph said a caravan park had been "raised by the winds" in Yarrawonga.



"All the onsite cabins and vans are just destroyed, it's just been levelled," he said.



"I've spoken to the owners and they're quite devastated."



He said "big lush forests" were also impacted.



"They're very similar to the (dead trees) we have in our lakes," he said.

Forecasters will rely on the Fujita tornado damage scale to establish exactly how strong they were.

Bureau senior forecaster Terry Ryan said with such acute weather conditions, there could have been others.

He said the tornadoes were a result of a humid surface air colliding with an approaching front that was fuelled by strong upper-level winds.

Both tornadoes were believed to be F1 or F2 on the storm scale - strong enough to lift roofs.

"It's hard to predict exactly how strong they were at this stage, until we can collate all the relevant information,'' Mr Ryan said.



Wild winds also battered other parts of the state yesterday.

A Knox boy had a close escape on his way to school when a tree fell in his path.

The SES was also called to remove a large gum tree that fell on a car after hitting a power line in The Basin's Old Forest Rd.

One driver was being checked by paramedics after a tree crushed his car in Kilmore during high wind gusts.

A woman called for help after a tree fell on her vehicle in Kew, bringing down live power lines on the ground around the car.

She was told not to leave the vehicle for fear she could be electrocuted. Firefighters, SES and ambulance officers were on the scene to safely remove her from the car.

St Kilda recorded a top gust of 100km/h. Tullamarine reached a top of 94km/h with other suburbs had winds between 70km/h and 90km/h.

- with Alex White, Angus Thompson, AAP

