Cyclone Debbie hits Australia’s Queensland region; coastal towns face flood threat

Cyclone Debbie, the most powerful storm since Cyclone Yasi in 2011, hit Australia's east coast between north Queensland’s towns of Bowen and Airlie Beach today morning at around 5 am local time.

• The Whitsunday Islands off the coast of Queensland have been devastated by the storm since morning.
• Hamilton Island, located south of the Whitsunday Islands, recorded wind gust at 263km per hour.
• Besides the islands, the mainland towns reported incidents of flooding, snapping of trees, buildings collapsing, power cuts and yachts getting ripped from moorings.
• Cyclone Debbie has moved inland. At the time of writing, the cyclone was positioned 45 kilometres south-east of the coastal town of Bowen and 15 kilometres north of the inland town of Proserpine.
• More than 34,000 people are left without power.
• Apart from knocking down the weather bureau's Bowen radar, the category 4 storm brought with it 211 mm (8 inches) of rain in an hour. Such heavy rain was a once-in-a-hundred year event, said Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Premier of Queensland
• The storm’s intensity hasn’t reduced ever since it made a landfall. This is making it potentially even more destructive.

Flood threat

According to local media reports, cyclone Debbie's landfall coincides with a 12-foot tide in Bowen, one of the highest tides of the year. This could make floods even worse. According to John D Ginger, a research director at James Cook University, houses in low-lying coastal regions, which have experienced storm surge, will be vulnerable to significant damage. More than 1,000 emergency service workers had been pressed into service.