One of the most powerful storms recorded in Australia pulled houses apart and snapped power poles as it ripped across already flood-sodden Queensland state, leaving authorities relieved that no one was killed.
Officials had issued days of increasingly dire warnings, and said lives were spared because people followed instructions to flee to evacuation centres or bunker themselves at home in dozens of cities and towns in Cyclone Yasi's path on the north-east coast.
Hundreds of houses were destroyed or seriously damaged, and the homes of thousands more people are barely liveable until the wreckage is cleared, officials said.
The storm was as powerful as forecasters predicted - ferocious winds up to 170mph at the core, flood-inducing rain and tidal surges that sent waves crashing ashore two blocks into seaside towns.
It was not as deadly as expected, although several small towns directly under Yasi's eye were devastated, hundreds of millions of dollars of banana and sugar cane crops smashed and power to more than 180,000 homes severed.
Yasi crossed the coast around midnight at the most-destructive category five rating, and the swirling storm pattern immediately began weakening once it was over land. It was still strong enough to hold a category one cyclone rating 500 miles inland late on Thursday where it was threatening to cause flooding in the Outback town of Mount Isa.
The disaster zone was north of Australia's worst flooding in decades, which swamped an area in Queensland state the size and Germany and France combined and killed 35 people during weeks of high water until last month.
But the storm added to the state's woes and is sure to add substantially to the estimated 5.6 billion Australian dollars (£3.5 billion) in damage since late November.
"We will meet the damages bill from the federal budget. It will require cutbacks in other areas, there is no point sugar-coating that," prime minister Julia Gillard said 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.
Fears for Cardwell residents after destruction wrought by Cyclone Yasi
- Sophie Elsworth, Padraic Murphy
- From: AAP, Herald Sun
- February 02, 2011 12:00AM
UPDATE 7.42pm: THE Mayor of the north Queensland coastal town of Cardwell holds grave fears for residents amid reports the town has been "wiped out".
The coastal community, about 50km south of Tully, has been devastated by Cyclone Yasi, which made landfall as a category 5 storm late last night.
Cassowary Coast mayor Bill Shannon said the township was warned to evacuate, but about 100 locals chose not to leave.
Mr Shannon said there were concerns for the safety of some of those people.
"It's the welfare of those people that we are worried about,'' Mr Shannon said.
"It's our greatest concern. I won't be satisfied until we get in there.''
As Cyclone Yasi rumbles on across Queensland, Mt Isa has been warned to prepare for damaging winds and possible flash flooding, despite the tropical storm being downgraded to a category 1.
The weather bureau says Yasi is moving west southwest at 40km/h, and has put residents near the Northern Territory border and at Mt Isa on notice for damaging wind gusts and heavy rain.
Residents in Alice Springs were tonight warned that they could be affected by flooding as the cyclone bears down on the border.
Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said flash flooding was still a concern in certain areas as the cyclone powered on, although he said Yasi was weakening.
"But it'll still be quite a significant storm in Mt Isa later tonight,'' he told Sky News.
The bureau's 2.14pm (AEST) bulletin cancelled an earlier cyclone warning from Cardwell to Ayr and inland to Charters Towers.
At 1pm (AEST), the bureau said Yasi was about 150km northwest of Richmond and 295km east northeast of Mt Isa.
Damaging winds of above 90km/h were continuing through the tropical interior, while flash flooding and dangerous surf conditions will abate along the east coast between Cairns and Proserpine.
Tide levels were falling and were not expected to pose any further threat to coastal areas between Port Douglas and Ayr, the bureau said.
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At Port Hinchinbrook near Cardwell, about 70 boats were destroyed or badly damaged with some reportedly lifted out of the water during the gusts and dumped on land two metres from the foreshore.
The marina is destroyed, million-dollar boats have been ripped apart, homes have had roofs torn off, buildings are just shells, power lines are down everywhere and the town is barely recognisable.
RSL president Ray Andrews described the cyclone hitting "like a freight train coming for you".
"This place is wiped out," he said.
"Trees and the forest are just shredded, this was a mega storm.
"There's a lot of elderly people here who are going to need help here."
/Bureau of Meteorology
Source: news.com.au
Queensland Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said assessors had found boats smashed in harbours and homes suffering major structural damage on the coast where Cyclone Yasi made landfall.
Mr Roberts said the storm surge had kept authorities out of low-lying areas to assess the damage today, but aerial crews had flown over the areas to take a look.
At least 60 properties have major structural damage, 100 have "medium level damage" and 50 have minor damage, he said.
Premier Anna Bligh confirmed Cardwell, where evacuation orders were issued yesterday, sustained "significant devastation".
“The town of Cardwell has been very difficult to get into," she said.
"Most of the older houses in the town have been significantly damaged or completely demolished. Newer houses have fared much better. There has been extensive force into this town - boats have been pushed two blocks up into the township."
At Mission Beach about 22 properties have major structural damage.
At Tully Heads, 21 properties have major damage, 19 have medium damage and 12 have minor damage.
And in the Hinchinbrook area, 70 boats in a harbour have major damage.
Mr Roberts said authorities still had not been able to enter the communities of Silkwood, Halifax, Lucinda and Taylors Beach.
"However, as the day unfolds we will get people in there and get more of an impact," he said.
Residents tell of storm's fury
People in the path of Cyclone Yasi say the storm was so furious they didn't hear their roofs being torn off.
While the region's major cities of Cairns and Townsville have escaped relatively unscathed, North Queensland's small coastal communities have borne the brunt.
Power poles were snapped in half near Cardwell by the force of the winds about 90km south of Innisfail and north of Townsville.
While the low-lying areas were subject to evacuation orders, there are rumours that 100 people stayed in seaside Cardwell, where the storm surge was forecast to rise to seven metres.
As emergency crews cut their way into the town, the Bruce Highway, which links Townsville and Queensland’s far north, was cut by a huge storm surge.
Many shops and businesses line the highway, while the damage to the Bruce Highway is expected to severely disrupt the delivery of essential supplies.
Most of the town’s 1500 residents were evacuated by yesterday, but it is likely they'll have nowhere to return to, with water and power still cut off.
One of them, who was sheltering just outside the town, said it was a terrifying experience.
Cardwell's Chris Stoter, who spent the night at his brother-in-law's house about 20km inland, told The Courier Mail he did not even hear the roof being ripped off.
“We had to hang on to the door. Everything was just moving around and bang!
“The main roof from upstairs went and blew off.
“We didn’t hear the roof go, the wind was so noisy that we couldn’t hear anything.”
Mr Stoter, 50, spent the night with two English neighbours after the town was evacuated yesterday.
Seven adults huddled in the bathroom on the bottom storey of the two-storey home.
The water eventually caused the ceiling of the bathroom to cave in, so they moved to a small room next door, where they lay soaking wet on mattresses until about 4am.
“I was thinking ‘When is this bloody going to end?'
“I don’t know how to explain it. Just the roar of the wind. It would come in gusts but it didn’t stop then, it just kept going.”
Coastal communities bear the brunt
Premier Anna Bligh said Cardwell, as well as Tully, Mission Beach, Silkwood were the worst-hit regions, while so far 177,000 Queenslanders are without power.
Crops in the area have been significantly damaged, while mines in the region have been shut down or scaled down operations.
Cairns and Townsville were spared the worst of the storm, but vast swathes of both cities are without power.
Only 15 per cent of Townsville had electricity supply, the whole of Ingham was out and 34 per cent of Cairns had power while half of the homes in Mackay and Proserpine were out.
Ms Bligh said it could take weeks to completely repair damaged electricity infrastructure.
There were early reports of water damage to the water treatment plant in Townsville.
Police are urging residents to be patient and remain at evacuation centres while authorities decide on whether to give the all clear after Cyclone Yasi.
"The early news is not anything like I expected to hear this morning from a category five cyclone," Ms Bligh said, describing the absence of reports of deaths or injuries as a huge relief.
But there was a note of caution: "I do stress in many cases we are yet to see any assessments.
"It's far too early yet to start talking about dodging bullets.
"It's not over yet. We can still expect, I think, the possibility of sad and bad news.
"We are out there monitoring and we are out there literally cutting our way into communities to find people."
Early today the weather bureau again downgraded the cyclone, to a category two, but warned it remains a dangerous storm front.
It says the system that made landfall at Mission Beach as a monster category five last night continues to lose some of its awesome power as it moves inland.
At last report it was expected to reach Mt Isa after nightfall.
Fears for Mission Beach
The scene at ground zero has been described by one Mission Beach businessman as apocalyptic.
The manager of the Elandra Resort David Brook said the area now looked like "Vietnam (in the war movie) Apocalypse Now".
Trees are down, cars have been swept away, roofs have been torn off and the sand on the beach is gone.
"Nothing's been spared. The devastation is phenomenal, like nothing I've ever experienced," the veteran of at least five cyclones told the ABC.
Police who endured the full force of Yasi's fury in Mission Beach said trees had been reduced to sticks, streets were littered with debris, and some buildings had been damaged.
But conditions are still too dangerous in the wake of the category five monster to allow even a cursory assessment of the damage.
"Around 10pm (AEST) there was this massive roar and we could hear vegetation being shredded to pieces," officer in charge Sgt Dan Gallagher said this morning.
But he said the police station had protected all the officers and a handful of locals who also sought refuge there, including a couple and their 18-month-old baby girl.
When the eye of the cyclone passed over Mission Beach, bringing almost an hour's reprieve from its winds, put at up to 290km/h, the officers did a quick scout of the station grounds.
Tully and its 3500 residents are waking this morning to scenes of destruction, with roofs ripped off houses and trees uprooted.
Premier Bligh said Tully's main street had been extensively damaged.
"the early estimate is that one in three houses has either lost its roof or been completely demolished, and more than 20 per cent of businesses in the main are significantly impacted," she said.
Ingham Mayor Pino Giandomenico, who was hunkering down in his home in the north Queensland town, expected daylight to reveal "massive amounts of carnage".
"We can see that there are houses without roofs and trees down all over the place but it's dark so we can't see much else," he said.
"I would be very surprised if there isn't a lot of carnage out there, we just have to wait to the morning to see. I think the whole tropical coast will be a disaster zone."
Cassowary Coast councillor Ross Sorbello said the roof had been torn from his mother's house, where he was waiting out the storm, and other properties had suffered similar damage.
"We are talking about a pretty strong brick house that was built in the 70s, so God help us in the morning when we look at some of the older places," he said.
Mr Sorbello ventured outside briefly during the eye of the storm to assess the damage and said the streets were strewn with debris while power poles had been knocked over.
"It is just a scene of mass devastation," he said. "(Cyclone) Larry was a boy compared to this."
Tully resident Stephanie Grimaz said houses in her street had been ripped apart.
"The flat from across the street is in our front yard and we can see other houses which have just been destroyed," she said.
At Innisfail, which was devastated by Cyclone Larry in 2006, Cassowary councillor Bill Horsford said daylight had revealed a devastated landscape.
"It's just like the place has been sprayed with napalm, there's hardly a green leaf around, all of the beautiful mountains are now brown," he told the ABC.
"The cane crops are going to be devastated, it's just going to be devastation all round and all I can hope for is that there has been no loss of life or serious injury."
Terrified evacuees last night holed up at an emergency shelter and told of the windows flexing under the violent winds and water flooding in under doors.
Correspondent Duncan Paterson said people had been forced to frantically hammer wooden boards onto the bottom of doors to stop water gushing into a shelter at the Rising Sun building, where 70 people were holed up.
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