Cyclone damage widespread, moderate
SYDNEY: Cyclone Debbie wrought widespread but moderate damage in Australia’s northeast, authorities said yesterday, as flooding and fallen trees slowed troops and emergency workers reaching the worsthit areas.
No deaths were reported a day after Debbie smashed tourist resorts, flattened canefields and shut down coal mines in tropical Queensland state as a category four storm, one rung below the most dangerous wind speed level.
‘‘It’s looking promising in terms of being able to rebuild promptly with most of the major infrastructure intact,’’ Queensland state police deputy commissioner Steve Gollschewski told Australian Broadcasting Corporation television.
‘‘We’re still struggling to get in there, however,’’ he said, adding planes and boats were being used to bring army personnel and emergency workers to places cutoff by road.
Resorts along the Great Barrier Reef and coastal areas bore the brunt of the storm with wind gusts stronger than 260kmh.
One family near Airlie Beach, over which the eye of the storm passed, had a particularly dramatic night. Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the family welcomed a baby girl who was born inside the Whitsunday Ambulance Station as the storm raged outside.
Pictures from Hamilton Island and Airlie Beach showed streets stacked with snapped trees, roof tiles and furniture, with wrecked yachts washed ashore.
‘‘Nature has flung her worst at the people of Queensland,’’ Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters at the Crisis Coordination Centre in Canberra.
Electricity was cut for more than 63,000 people.
Hundreds of hectares of sugarcane crops had been flattened, Dan Galligan, chief executive of industry body Canegrowers, said in a statement.
In the Bowen Basin, the world’s singlelargest source of coal used to make steel, BHP Billiton, Glencore , and Stanmore Coal all said work at mines there had halted until further notice.
Ports operator North Queensland Bulk Ports Corporation also said it had no reports of significant damage.
Whitsunday Islands resorts were battered, running short on fresh water and closed to bookings until at least next week, but mostly intact.
Hoteliers hundreds of kilometres away at Cairns and Rockhampton were seeing cancellations for upcoming Easter holidays and operators worried that bad press would prolong the recovery, Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said.
‘‘These are places that are entirely unaffected by these circumstances and that’s the kind of collateral damage we suffer sometimes in our industry,’’ he said.
Townsville Airport reopened, although flights to Hamilton Island, Proserpine and Mackay were cancelled.
Only two injuries were reported, police said. — Reuters