CYCLONES’ TRAIL OF TERROR
CYCLONES have brought death and destruction to North Queensland in its relatively short history, from Cyclone Sigma in 1896 to Yasi in 2011.
While some cyclones wrought more death and structural damage than others, all were terrifying events that resulted in grief and hardship for countless residents.
By far the worst system to hit the northern region was Cyclone Mahina on March 4, 1899, when more than 400 people were killed on perhaps the most powerful cyclone to ever hit the Australian coast.
The category 5 system smashed into the coast at Princess Bay, north of Cooktown, and in an effort to shelter from the incoming storm, an entire North Queensland fleet had moored in the bay – only to be situated on the direct approach of the incoming monster.
Reports at the time claim all but one ship sank and 307 men from the fleet perished.
Mahina struck three years after Cyclone Sigma smashed into the coast northeast of Townsville, creating high seas and dumping up to 510mm of rain in the area, causing the Ross River to burst its banks and flood about five kilometres into the town’s suburbs with up to two metres of water.
Ten ships were wrecked in the town’s harbour and 17 people died in the flood, while one sailor also perished.
Buildings including Townsville Showground, Townsville Supreme Court and Cluden racecourse and railway station were badly damaged in the disaster.
The young town was starting to find its feet when it was struck again by another powerful system, Cyclone Leonta, in 1903.
Leonta ripped through the community, leaving 17 people dead and scores of residents injured.
Witnesses to the whirlwind said it was akin to experiencing hell on earth, and witnesses to the disaster were astounded to see the storm coming from two directions, first from the land and then from the sea with a lull in between.
It was during that lull that many residents emerged from their sheltering places, only to be hit by another, even more terrible gale as flying timber and iron cut through the air.
Almost all wooden buildings in the town were demolished, and a wing of the Townsville Hospital collapsed and buried eight patients, who were all killed.
Most sources say 12 people were killed in Cyclone Leonta, which was shorter in duration than Sigma but much more severe.
More weather events struck the North Queensland region in the following years, but it was not until Cyclone Althea in 1971 that Townsville again experienced the full fury of a tropical cyclone.
The category 4 system made landfall at Rollingstone on Christmas Eve, 1971, generating wind gusts as high as 215km/h, tearing through the city and suburbs of Townsville and leaving Magnetic Island in ruins.
Three people lost their lives in Althea, with thousands of Townsville homes damaged and destroyed, prompting the Queensland government to change laws to improve building codes. Townsville became the first city to adopt the new building codes, laying a foundation for a new standard of housing construction throughout Queensland.
One person was killed by Cyclone Aivu which crossed the north Queensland coast near the Burdekin River on April 4, 1989.
Starting as a tropical low southeast of Papua New Guinea, the system slowly moved southwest before reaching category 4 cyclone intensity on April 1.
It eventually made landfall with wind gusts up to 200km/h and a storm surge of up to three metres.
One elderly man drowned in the storm surge, which also produced severe flooding in Townsville.
In 2006 the Townsville region was spared the wrath of Cyclone Larry, which packed 240km/h winds and destroyed and damaged up to 10,000 homes and farms when it crossed the coast near Innisfail.
Larry decimated the country’s banana crops and racked up a bill of $1.5bn, but miraculously no lives were lost and no serious injures reported.
But Townsville was not spared from destruction when Cyclone Yasi pummelled into North Queensland on February 3, 2011.
The massive system spanned an area from Cairns to Ingham, and packed wind gusts of up to 285km/h.
Townsville was spared most of Yasi’s fury, but winds were still strong enough to cause widespread structural damage and a loss of power that lasted months for many residents.
It was only when Yasi eventually made its way to Mount Isa, more than 20 hours later, that it finally weakened to a tropical low.
North Queensland faced a nervous wait in March 2017 when Cyclone Debbie formed in the Coral Sea.
The system eventually crossed the
The aftermath of Cyclone Leonta. coast near Airlie Beach on March 28 as a category four system.
The cyclone devastated the islands of the Whitsundays, including Hamilton and Daydream, as well as causing widespread damage throughout the towns of Airlie Beach, Proserpine and Bowen.
But it was Debbie’s continuing path of destruction that made her such a formidable force, causing heavy rainfall and flooding all the way down the Sunshine Coast to Brisbane and Lismore in northern NSW.
In the end, Cyclone Debbie was responsible for a total of 14 deaths, from the Whitsundays to the Tweed River, with a damage bill of almost $2.5bn.