Thousands evacuated as Australia braces for cyclone

Townsville, March 27 

Thousands of people including tourists were evacuated today as northeast Australia braced for a powerful cyclone packing destructive winds, with warnings of major structural damage and surging tides.

Cyclone Debbie has been forming off the coast of Queensland state over recent days, the Bureau of Meteorology said, and is expected to make landfall as a category four storm-on a scale of five-after daybreak Tuesday.

Residents, who have been sandbagging and boarding up homes, were being told to prepare for the worst storm to pummel the state since Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which ripped houses from their foundations and devastated crops.

“This is going to be a nasty cyclone,” said Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, adding that structural damage and power outages were likely.

So far more than 3,500 people have been evacuated between the towns of Home Hill and Proserpine, around 100 kilometres south of Townsville, a tourist hotspot used to access the Great Barrier Reef. — PTI