An Austrian man is demanding substantial damages after he was blasted off the toilet when hundreds of thousands of hail stones exploded out of it. Martin Bierbauer said: “I heard the pipes rumbling a bit, and suddenly hailstones the size of golf balls started exploding out of the toilet like it was a popcorn machine. “There was an avalanche of ice that quickly filled the toilet, then the entire flat, and eventually the entire building.” “I ran down the stairs with the hailstones following me, and other residents did the same.”

Another resident, Silvia Streit, said: “I grabbed a board and put it over the toilet, but the pressure was so great, I ended up sitting on the board as the hail flowed through the flat and down the stairs.” Freak weather has led to temperatures of over 35 degrees centigrade in Austria which a few days later plunge to near zero as freak hail storms batter the country. The incident at the block of flats in Eisenstadt, the capital of the province of Burgenland, was caused by hailstones flooding into a local drain during a torrential downpour, which became blocked.

Local council spokesman Wolfgang Leinner said: “The pressure was too great, the hailstones had to go somewhere and they came out through the toilets it seems.”

It’s a global cooling issue.