Troops headed for cyclone-devastated north-east Australia on Tuesday as Prime Minister John Howard pledged quick aid for those left homeless or without power by the country’s worst storm in decades.
Cyclone Larry hit the Queensland coast as a highest-level category-five storm on Monday, destroying hundreds of homes, toppling power lines and causing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of damage.
About 30 people were reported to have suffered minor injuries in the cyclone, which packed winds of up to 290kph as it made landfall on a coast popular with tourists visiting the Great Barrier Reef.
There were no fatalities, but the storm destroyed or damaged half the homes in Innisfail, a coastal farming town of 8 500, and laid waste to the banana and sugar-cane crops that are a mainstay of the region’s economy along with tourism.
Howard said he would visit the storm-ravaged area on Wednesday and pledged federal government assistance to cyclone victims.
“The federal government will give what is needed to get these communities back on their feet,” he said. “We just need a day or two to make a proper assessment of how the money can best be spent.”
The Australian Banana Growers’ Council said Larry wiped out 80% of Australia’s crop, worth about Aus$300-million ($225-million), and that as many as 4 000 plantation workers could lose their jobs.
Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said tourism operators had already been hit by some cancellations and urged people not to stay away, saying this would only damage the economy further.
State Premier Peter Beattie said residents who had somewhere else to go should consider leaving the area and staying away until essential services were restored.
Fresh water, meals, and tarpaulins were being delivered to affected areas and teams would try to restore electricity supplies and repair sewerage systems, he said, warning that parts of the state face a “long, slow” recovery.
With so much water lying around, there was a risk of outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, he said.
A total of 84 000 homes remained without power, electricity officials said, adding that it would take up to a week to restore power to the Innisfail area.
“There are a large number of people who have been rendered homeless by the cyclone who are in community welfare centres, so we’ll be looking at supplying power to those facilities so those people have some degree of comfort at least,” said Ergon Energy spokesperson Gayle Whenmouth.
The army dispatched 150 troops to Innisfail, where Queensland state emergency services minister Pat Purcell said restoring water supplies was the biggest priority.
He said it was difficult to estimate the number of people who had been displaced because some were staying with relatives.
“As our people move, cleaning streets up, we’ll find more of those, but it’s very hard to get people to move,” he told ABC radio. “I spoke to a gentleman who was in his 80s; his house was destroyed, but his garage was still standing and he wasn’t leaving his patch, he just didn’t want to leave home.”
Cyclone Larry had weakened to a tropical low as it moved further inland on Tuesday, but the authorities were keeping a wary eye on a second storm, Cyclone Wati, which could reach the Queensland coast this week.
The government’s Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre said Wati was a category-two storm located about 750km off Queensland and was expected to intensify as it moved towards the coast.
On Wednesday morning, Wati was expected to slow down and remain in offshore waters for the rest of the week, bringing gale-force winds off the coast south of the area hit by Larry. — AFP