Over 51,000 Queensland properties are without power in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie, with residents awakening to assess the full damage wrought by the Category 4 storm.
Queensland Fire Service official Katarina Carroll said it’s too early to assess the cyclone’s full impact, but said movement in the Bowen and Proserpine regions is “extraordinarily difficult” due to “the amount of damage – the trees, the power lines.”
More than 40,000 homes have been without power overnight as a result of the destruction for #CycloneDebbie. pic.twitter.com/v0cvPiSHKx
— Nine News Queensland (@9NewsQueensland) March 28, 2017
One Proserpine man suffered significant injuries when a wall collapsed yesterday.
Premier Annastacia Palasczuk said it’s currently unclear how many other people had been injured during the storm, but reiterated “we are seeing some structural damage in places such as Proserpine.”
Carroll said that 600 calls for SES assistance had emerged from the Whitsundays Islands and Airlie Beach regions, with that number expected to climb as power and communication lines are restored.
There’s no set timeline for when power will be restored to homes.
The weather system is now being treated as a tropical low as it works its way into the centre of the state, however it’s still bringing intense gusts of up too 100km/h and very heavy rainfall.
We’ll update this story as it develops.
.@NASANPP provided this look of Tropical Cyclone Debbie as it made landfall in Queensland bringing heavy rainfall: https://t.co/PKLkMW7TMI pic.twitter.com/Ya5p0LLlj2
— NASA (@NASA) March 28, 2017
Source: ABC / Nine News Queensland.
Photo: @lollybryson / Instagram.
