Cyclone Debbie batters northeast Australia
At least one person seriously injured while 45,000 homes are left without electricity
A“monster” cyclone smashed into northeast Australia Tuesday, cutting power, damaging buildings and uprooting trees, with coastal residents battling lashing rain and howling winds.
Great Barrier Reef islands popular with foreign tourists were battered by the category four storm which slammed into the coast of Queensland state with destructive wind gusts of up to 270km/h (167 miles) near its broad core.
There were fears its arrival would coincide with early morning high tides and cause severe flooding, but it slowed before making landfall between the towns of Bowen and Airlie Beach in the early afternoon.
By late evening it had been downgraded to category two and was expected to weaken further.
At least one person was seriously injured, but the extent of damage was not expected to be known until daybreak with conditions too dangerous for emergency crews to venture outside despite calls for help.
“At first light tomorrow, we’ll be sending people in to do a rapid assessment of the damage,” said Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, with flash flooding and still powerful winds making it hard to do this at night.
All in shock
hundreds of
“Everyone is going to be in shock tomorrow, just to see the full impact of this cyclone. I’m bracing myself for it.”
The federal government said it was on standby to help with the clean-up, with soldiers, helicopters and ready to mobilise.
The effects of the storm were felt across a huge swathe of coast that would span the distance between London and Berlin, although not all areas were badly hit.
“It felt like we were underneath a freight train for most of the night, strong bass rumbles as the... wind rattled past and made the buildings shake,” Cameron Berkman, who is holidaying on Hayman Island, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Queensland planes politician Mark Ryan said it was also chaotic at Airlie Beach, the mainland holiday gateway to the Whitsunday islands.
Some 3,500 people were evacuated between the towns of Home Hill and Proserpine, around 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of Townsville, a tourist hotspot and access point to the Great Barrier Reef.
Another 2,000 people in Bowen also moved, officials said, with many camped in cyclone shelters. Up to 25,000 more in low-lying parts of Mackay headed to higher ground.