Massive Cyclone Bears Down on Australian Coast
Baku, February 2 (AZERTAC). Strong winds and driving rain began buffeting northeast Australia as one of the country`s biggest storms bore down Wednesday while residents huddled in evacuation centers or hid at home in bathrooms behind piles of blankets and mattresses.
Australian leaders issued dire warnings of potential devastation for cities and towns dotted along a stretch of coast more than 190 miles long in north Queensland state, in an area considered the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.
Nearly 90,000 people have already lost power from the storm.
The storm will compound misery in Queensland, which has already been hit by months of flooding that killed 35 people and inundated hundreds of communities. Yasi is due to hit north of the main waterlogged area, but emergency services are already stretched and the whole state is flood-weary.
“This is a cyclone of savagery and intensity,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in a nationally televised news conference. “People are facing some really dreadful hours in front of them.”
Australia`s Bureau of Meteorology says the cyclone is “likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations.”
The storm will lash the coast with up to 28 inches of rain and send tidal surges that are likely to flood coastal regions, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
Australia`s huge, sparsely populated tropical north is battered each year by about six cyclones — called typhoons throughout much of Asia and hurricanes in the Western hemisphere. Building codes have been strengthened since Cyclone Tracy devastated the city of Darwin in 1974, killing 71 people, in one of Australia`s worst natural disasters.
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