SYDNEY: Thousands of people fled their homes and crammed into shelters in northeastern Australia on Wednesday as the most powerful cyclone in the country’s history barreled toward a string of popular tourist cities lining the coast.
Police were forced to turn away people from some shelters which were already full, and engineers warned that even “cyclone proof” homes could be blown apart by winds expected to reach 300 per hour when it hits later on Wednesday.
“We are facing a storm of catastrophic proportions,” Queensland state premier Anna Bligh said after Cyclone Yasi was upgraded to a maximum-strength category five storm.
More than 400,000 people live in the cyclone’s expected path, which includes the cities of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay. The entire stretch is popular with tourists and includes Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Satellite images showed Yasi as a massive storm system covering an area bigger than Italy or New Zealand, with the cyclone predicted to be the strongest ever to hit Australia.
“All aspects of this cyclone are going to be terrifying and potentially very , very damaging,” Bligh said.
The greatest threat to life could come from surges of water of up to seven metres above normal high tide levels along the coast at the town of Cardwell, she said. The storm is due to hit when the tide is high.
Mines, rail lines and coal ports have all shut down, with officials warning the storm could drive inland for hundreds of kilometres, hitting rural and mining areas still struggling to recover after months of devastating floods.
Outside a shuttered night market in the tourist city of Cairns, nervous backpackers tried to flag down cars and reach temporary evacuation centres at a nearby university.
“We are terrified. We have had almost no information and have never seen storms like this,” said Marlim Flagar, 20, from Sweden.
Struggling with a surge of people arriving at the centre, police later blocked more people from entering.
“We’re disappointed we can’t take any more people in but I’ve been through there but it’s just not safe,” Acting Inspector John Bosnjak told Reuters.
ABC media reported that all evacuation centres in the Cairns region were now at capacity and that several were closed.
The bureau of meteorology said in a bulletin that the impact of Yasi was “likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations”. At a sprawling shopping centre, hundreds of people streamed into a makeshift shelter carrying backpacks, blankets and food.
“We’ve only got a loaf of bread and a few other things, so we hope it doesn’t last too long or we’ll run out,” said local woman Kirsty Munro as she tried to gather her three children aged two, four and eight in the crush of people.
Windows Taped
Australia has strict building standards and Queensland suffers regular cyclones, but experts warned that many homes and buildings may not be able to withstand winds of this magnitude.
“The building regulations make things a lot better off at lower wind speeds but once you get to extreme cases you are in uncharted ground,” said Robert Leicester, a researcher at the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, who has studied the impact of previous cyclones.
Hundreds of people were lining up in a supermarket on the western side of Cairns, stocking up on staples such as bread, milk and tinned goods.
The cyclone is expected to make landfall at 10 pm local time on the Queensland coast between Cairns and Innisfail.
Its strength is on a par with Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. Media reports said Yasi had knocked out meteorology equipment on Willis Island in the Coral Sea, 450 km east of Cairns.
Some rain was starting to fall and winds were picking up in Cairns. The main streets were largely deserted. Shops were closed and windows taped to stop shards of flying glass.
At a coffee shop on the Cairns waterfront, Scott Warren covered windows with black plastic sheeting and sandbags from a pickup truck, trying to work out how high he would need to build the barrier to escape a possible surge of seawater.
“We get a heap of cyclones every year, but this one has got everyone’s attention,” Warren said. “We’re hoping for the best, but expecting the worst to be honest.”
Power, Mobile Phones May Go Down
State premier Bligh warned that the mobile phone network may go down and said current estimates were that 150,000-200,000 people could lose power if winds topple transmission towers.
She also said that those in low-lying areas facing a risk of flooding from storm surges had “a window of opportunity” of a matter of hours to leave.
“Do not bother to pack bags. Just grab each other and get to a place of safety,” she said.
In Townsville alone, the storm surge could flood up to 30,000 homes, according to the town’s web site.
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