A tiny town known as "cyclone city" on Australia's remote
northwest coast was being lashed by winds of up to 235 kmh late
Thursday as a severe tropical cyclone slammed ashore from the
Indian Ocean.
Tropical cyclone Glenda, the second destructive storm to hit
Australia in 10 days, had earlier forced the evacuation of hundreds
of people in larger towns, shut down oil and gas rigs and disrupted
iron ore shipments in the region.
Meteorologists said the eye of the cyclone passed over the town
of Onslow, 1,390 kilometers north of the Western Australia state
capital of Perth, at 9 PM local time (15:00 GMT).
"It was really, really creepy. Before it was hammering down and
we had winds gusting in ... and now it's absolutely dead still,"
one unidentified Onslow resident told Australian Broadcasting Corp
radio.
The category four cyclone, one below the maximum grade, stalled
briefly as it crossed the remote and sparsely populated coastline
but was expected to resume moving southwest through the ruggedly
beautiful Pilbara region.
"Residents of Onslow are warned that very destructive winds will
soon resume without warning from a different direction,"
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said.
There were no immediate reports of damage from Onslow.
Towns further north such as Dampier and the iron ore and tourism
hub of Karratha earlier reported that trees and power lines had
been brought down and roads cut by flooding after they were
sideswiped by Glenda.
Founded by graziers in the 1880s, Onslow has a population of
about 800 and is known locally as "cyclone city" for the frequency
of major storms.
(China Daily March 31, 2006)
