A woman has been killed by a falling tree branch after the car she was travelling in was hit on Friday night.
About 9:00pm, a tree branch fell onto a car on Kings Way in South Melbourne, injuring two women in the back seat.
Both passengers were taken to hospital where one of them died from her injuries.
The other back-seat passenger is in a stable condition while the driver and a front-seat passenger were not injured.
Caution against linking branch fall to extreme weather
Police did not confirm whether Victoria's record-breaking heat on Friday was being investigated as a contributing factor to the branch's fall.
But consulting arborist Craig Hallam said there was no strong body of scientific evidence linking extreme heat to tree limb failure.
"There's a lot of things we don't know about the site, so you just can't give a conclusive answer [to the cause]," he said.
"When these things occur they have to be analysed, they have to be investigated and find out if there was something that was obvious that could have been picked up to prevent the failure."
Mr Hallam — who is not involved in investigating the Kings Way branch fall — said as a general rule, people should call their council if they see something about a tree in their neighbourhood that concerns them.
