Cyclone gusts to hit 320km/h
Posted by JAC on 2/1/2011, 10:59 pm
TROPICAL cyclone Yasi has been upgraded to a life-threatening category 5 this morning with 320km/h winds predicted to hit the north Queensland coast.



State Emergency Service volunteers wait to help load patients onto Royal Australian Air Force C-17 and C-130 aircraft as hospitals are being evacuated to Brisbane ahead of Cyclone Yasi at Cairns Airport. Picture: AFP PHOTO / Paul CROCK Source: AFP





Go south as far as possible ... Queensland Premier Anna Bligh / Pic: Tim Marsden Source: The Daily Telegraph


Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from low-lying areas as the cyclone approaches, with its full fury expected to hit the region around Cairns sometime after 10pm on Wednesday.

The Australian Defence Force was called in to evacuate hundreds of patients from two Cairns hospitals who started arriving in Brisbane on Tuesday evening.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said on Tuesday mandatory evacuation orders were being given in council areas from Cook to Hinchinbrook for people in flood-risk areas.

Cairns Airport will close at 10am on Wednesday.

Yasi is expected to be Queensland's worst cyclone, covering something approaching twice the physical size of Cyclone Larry, which devastated Innisfail in 2006 and left a $1.5 billion damage bill.

But perhaps more frighteningly, for a more befitting comparison experts have even thrown up the ominous name of Hurricane Katrina, she of New Orleans infamy.

The massive cyclone is expected to whip up a tsunami-style tidal surge of almost 3m that will inundate low-lying areas, its high winds of 280km/h to cause indiscriminate destruction to coastal suburbs.

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Australia: Cyclone Yasi - hanna, 1/31/2011, 8:34 pm
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