Tweet
“We will meet the damages bill from the federal budget. It will require cutbacks in other areas, there is no point sugarcoating that,” Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Thursday in Canberra. The government has already announced a special tax nationwide to help pay for the earlier flooding.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said several thousand people would be temporarily homeless due to the storm, and Red Cross Australia and local governments were working on registering people in need and finding places to house them, including among volunteers.
Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said initial assessments were that more than 280 houses were damaged in the three hardest—hit towns, and crews were unable to reach at least four others, so the tally would certainly rise.
Boats littering Cardwell streets
Emergency workers who used chain saws to cut their way through debris in Cardwell town found boats littering streets, deposited there by tidal surges, Ms. Bligh said.
It would take days to make a proper assessment of the damage, and fatalities could yet emerge, she warned.
“It’s a long way to go before I say we’ve dodged any bullets,” Ms. Bligh said.
The main coastal highway was a slalom course of downed trees and power lines, surrounded by scenes of devastation - roofs peeled back from houses, fields of sugar cane and banana shredded and flattened, lush hillside forests stripped of every leaf.
It was really terrifying: Kurrimine Beach resident
“It was really terrifying, but we were safe,” said Barbara Kendall, who spent a sleepless night in a basement parking garage with her husband and five cats after being evacuated from their coastal home at Kurrimine Beach. “It’s really hard to describe. All I could hear was the screeching of the wind.”
Officials kept more than 10,000 people who spent the night encamped in evacuation centers set up in shopping malls and other heavy—built locations inside until around lunchtime Thursday to avoid lingering dangers such as downed power lines.
In Townsville and Cairns - the two major towns that book—ended the threatened zone - evacuees emerged to streets strewn with branches and light debris such as downed street signs. Officials said no major structural damage was done, though parts of Townsville were flooded.
Smaller communities proved to be more vulnerable.
Ahead of the storm, authorities had repeatedly warned the country to expect widespread destruction and likely deaths.
"The worst cyclone in 100 years"
“This was the worst cyclone this country has experienced, potentially, for 100 years and I think that due to very good planning, a very good response ... we’ve been able to keep people safe,” Roberts said.
Australia’s huge, sparsely populated tropical north is battered annually 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 in one of Australia’s worst natural disasters.
Amid the chaos, a bit of happy news - a baby girl was born at a Cairns evacuation centre just before dawn with the help of a British midwife on holiday, councilor Linda Cooper said.
Coastal towns battered
An earlier report said, the most powerful storm ripped across Australia’s northeast coast early Thursday, blasting apart houses, laying waste to banana crops and leaving boats lying in the streets of wind— and wave—swept towns.
Authorities said they were surprised to learn at daybreak that no one had been reported killed, but cautioned that bad news could eventually emerge from communities still cut off after the overnight storm, which left several thousand people homeless.
Emergency services fanned out as day broke to assess the damage across a disaster zone stretching more than 300 km in Queensland state, using chain saws to cut through trees and other debris blocking roads.
Cyclone Yasi was moving inland and losing power on Thursday. But drenching rains were still falling, adding woes to a state where Australia’s worst flooding in decades has killed 35 people since late November.
Hundreds of thousands of people spent the night huddled in evacuation centres or bunkered in their homes as the cyclone hit, packing howling winds gusting to 300 km and causing tidal surges that swamped coastal areas.
"The devastation is phenomenal"
“Nothing’s been spared. The devastation is phenomenal, like nothing I’ve ever experienced,” David Brook, the manager of a resort at Mission Beach, where the core of the storm hit the coast around midnight, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
“Vegetation has been reduced to sticks,” said Sgt. Dan Gallagher, a Mission Beach police officer.
At Innisfail, acres (hectares) of banana trees lay snapped in half, the crops ruined, and power poles had been snapped in half by the winds.
The main highway leading south was cut by tidal floodwaters, and hundreds of cars were parked nearby as people who had evacuated Wednesday to get home to see what was left.
Barbara Kendall sat in her car next to her meowing cats Loly, Blossom, Spingle and Junior. Ms. Kendall and her husband David spent a sleepless night in a basement parking garage below a supermarket in Innisfail after being evacuated from their coastal home at Kurrimine Beach.
The trunk of her car was filled with her most essential items - photographs, heirlooms and precious jewelry.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said several thousand people would be temporarily homeless due to the storm, and Red Cross Australia and local governments were working on registering people in need and finding places to house them, including among volunteers.
Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said initial assessments were that more than 280 houses were damaged in the three hardest—hit towns, and crews were unable to reach at least four others, so the tally would certainly rise.
Boats littering Cardwell streets
Emergency workers who used chain saws to cut their way through debris in Cardwell town found boats littering streets, deposited there by tidal surges, Ms. Bligh said.
It would take days to make a proper assessment of the damage, and fatalities could yet emerge, she warned.
“It’s a long way to go before I say we’ve dodged any bullets,” Ms. Bligh said.
The main coastal highway was a slalom course of downed trees and power lines, surrounded by scenes of devastation - roofs peeled back from houses, fields of sugar cane and banana shredded and flattened, lush hillside forests stripped of every leaf.
It was really terrifying: Kurrimine Beach resident
“It was really terrifying, but we were safe,” said Barbara Kendall, who spent a sleepless night in a basement parking garage with her husband and five cats after being evacuated from their coastal home at Kurrimine Beach. “It’s really hard to describe. All I could hear was the screeching of the wind.”
Officials kept more than 10,000 people who spent the night encamped in evacuation centers set up in shopping malls and other heavy—built locations inside until around lunchtime Thursday to avoid lingering dangers such as downed power lines.
In Townsville and Cairns - the two major towns that book—ended the threatened zone - evacuees emerged to streets strewn with branches and light debris such as downed street signs. Officials said no major structural damage was done, though parts of Townsville were flooded.
Smaller communities proved to be more vulnerable.
Ahead of the storm, authorities had repeatedly warned the country to expect widespread destruction and likely deaths.
"The worst cyclone in 100 years"
“This was the worst cyclone this country has experienced, potentially, for 100 years and I think that due to very good planning, a very good response ... we’ve been able to keep people safe,” Roberts said.
Australia’s huge, sparsely populated tropical north is battered annually 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 in one of Australia’s worst natural disasters.
Amid the chaos, a bit of happy news - a baby girl was born at a Cairns evacuation centre just before dawn with the help of a British midwife on holiday, councilor Linda Cooper said.
Coastal towns battered
An earlier report said, the most powerful storm ripped across Australia’s northeast coast early Thursday, blasting apart houses, laying waste to banana crops and leaving boats lying in the streets of wind— and wave—swept towns.
Authorities said they were surprised to learn at daybreak that no one had been reported killed, but cautioned that bad news could eventually emerge from communities still cut off after the overnight storm, which left several thousand people homeless.
Emergency services fanned out as day broke to assess the damage across a disaster zone stretching more than 300 km in Queensland state, using chain saws to cut through trees and other debris blocking roads.
Cyclone Yasi was moving inland and losing power on Thursday. But drenching rains were still falling, adding woes to a state where Australia’s worst flooding in decades has killed 35 people since late November.
Hundreds of thousands of people spent the night huddled in evacuation centres or bunkered in their homes as the cyclone hit, packing howling winds gusting to 300 km and causing tidal surges that swamped coastal areas.
"The devastation is phenomenal"
“Nothing’s been spared. The devastation is phenomenal, like nothing I’ve ever experienced,” David Brook, the manager of a resort at Mission Beach, where the core of the storm hit the coast around midnight, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
“Vegetation has been reduced to sticks,” said Sgt. Dan Gallagher, a Mission Beach police officer.
At Innisfail, acres (hectares) of banana trees lay snapped in half, the crops ruined, and power poles had been snapped in half by the winds.
The main highway leading south was cut by tidal floodwaters, and hundreds of cars were parked nearby as people who had evacuated Wednesday to get home to see what was left.
Barbara Kendall sat in her car next to her meowing cats Loly, Blossom, Spingle and Junior. Ms. Kendall and her husband David spent a sleepless night in a basement parking garage below a supermarket in Innisfail after being evacuated from their coastal home at Kurrimine Beach.
The trunk of her car was filled with her most essential items - photographs, heirlooms and precious jewelry.