Celebrity resort washed away by storm winds, gigantic waves
A violent storm has washed away much of the beach at Byron Bay, the Australian coastal resort that has become a playground to Hollywood stars and billionaires.
Main Beach, 760km north of Sydney, where Hollywood A-listers such as Chris Hemsworth live, has all but disappeared after it was ripped away by giant waves, the town’s mayor told reporters.
Breakers up to 7.6m high hit Byron Bay’s shore on Monday driven by 105kmh winds, ripping away the sand and causing a concrete walkway along the beach to collapse into the sea. Large trees were dragged into the ocean when the ground beneath them slipped away as the waves undermined the top of the beach.
‘‘Right now around Byron, we’ve got some severe weather, massive swells, we’re watching our beach disappear,’’ Simon
Richardson, the mayor, said.
‘‘What we’ve got here is yet another event. An extreme weather event coming on the back of climate change that our community’s dealing with. It’s about the fourth or fifth major event in the last couple of years.’’
A severe weather warning is in place for damaging winds, heavy rainfall, abnormally high tides and huge surf along a 1000km stretch of coast stretching from northern New South Wales into Queensland. In some places more than 68cm of rain fell over the weekend.
The devastation to Byron Bay’s beach comes just before Australia’s late December and
January peak summer holiday season and amid growing fears that several other beaches in the region are being destroyed.
‘‘There is already major erosion into Byron Bay and numerous other beaches are experiencing that right now,’’ Dean Narramore, a meteorologist, told
Hemsworth, 37, his wife, Elsa Pataky, the Spanish model and actress, and their children recently moved into a new A$20 million (NZ$21m) mansion at Byron Bay, Australia’s most easterly mainland point. The star’s home is set well back from the beach.
Forecasters have warned that Australia will have a wetter than usual summer this year due to a La Nina weather phenomenon, expected to bring high rainfall and more tropical storms.
Mortgage lenders are also being urged to recognise the risks that more tropical storms further south than usual pose to property.
Climate models suggested cyclones will increase in intensity and travel further south to more heavily built-up regions along the east coast, Pierre Wiart, head of risk management at the research firm, Corelogic, told the