Cyclone batters Australia’s Barrier Reef coast

SYDNEY: A tropical cyclone battered Australia’s Barrier Reef coast Saturday, knocking out power and phone lines for thousands of people and threatening floods, despite weakening as it headed south toward major tourist resorts.
Tens of thousands of people hunkered down overnight as strong gales and heavy rains lashed the far north, but no casualties or major destruction was reported as cyclone Ita was downgraded to a category one storm.
Ita crossed the coast near Cape Flattery late Friday as a category four storm packing winds up to 230 kilometers per hour, tearing off roofs and uprooting trees.
Queensland state Premier Campbell Newman said several thousand people across the far north had lost electricity and warned that cyclone Ita “continues to be a threat.”
“I am greatly relieved at this time that we have no reports of either death or injury,” he told a press conference, while urging people to stay indoors or in shelters “until this is properly over.”
As authorities started the clean up in the wake of the storm, cyclone warnings remained in force from Cooktown to the bigger Barrier Reef resorts of Port Douglas and Cairns, 1,700 kilometers north of Brisbane.