CAIRNS: One of the most powerful cyclones on record slammed into Australia's coast Thursday, uprooting trees, tearing off roofs and bringing down power lines but there were no reports of deaths. Cyclone Yasi, packing winds of up to 300 km an hour near its core, comes ashore along hundreds of kilometers of northeast coastline late Wednesday. Mines, rail lines and coal ports have been shut, with officials warning the storm could drive far inland, hitting mining areas of Queensland state struggling to recover from recent devastating floods. Queensland accounts for about a fifth of Australia's economy and 90 percent of its steelmaking coal exports but the extent of the damage might not be known for many hours. The eye of the cyclone crossed the coast close to the tourist town of Mission Beach at around midnight. “It sounds like a roaring train going over the top of the house. There are trees cracking outside,” Hayley Leonard told Seven Network television from a concrete bunker beneath her home in the town of Innisfail. Police received numerous reports of widespread damage but no reports of injuries or deaths, the Courier Mail newspaper said on its website. Yasi was rated a maximum-strength category five storm and drew comparisons with Hurricane Katrina which wrecked New Orleans in 2005. It was downgraded to category four as it moved inland and later to a category three. But its core remained very destructive, the Bureau of Meteorology said. A Bureau of Meteorology spokesman said a storm surge of two meters above the normal level of the tide had inundated one stretch of coast but reporters said the surges were not as severe as feared. State Premier Anna Bligh said earlier the force of the cyclone was unprecedented. “I am not going to sugar-coat this. It's going to be a tough 24 hours ... We are still in for the worst,” Bligh told a briefing. “Without doubt, we are set to encounter scenes of devastation and heartbreak ... This cyclone is like nothing else we've dealt with before as a nation.” More than 400,000 people live in the cyclone's path, including the cities of Cairns, Townsville and Mackay. The entire stretch is popular with tourists, includes the Great Barrier Reef, and is home to major coal and sugar ports. The storm threatens to inflate world sugar, copper and coal prices, forcing a copper refinery to close and paralysing sugar and coal exports. It even prompted a major mining community at Mt. Isa, almost 1,000 km, to go on alert.
