Only minor damage was reported as dawn broke Saturday after tropical Cyclone Ita crossed Australia's north-east coast bringing torrential rain and gale-force winds, according to dpa. Ita made landfall late Friday as a category 4 system at Cape Flattery, 60 kilometers north of Cooktown and very sparcely populated. Ita was downgraded to category 2 as it moved inland. "There's a lot of vegetation on the road and unfortunately been some buildings damaged," Cooktown Mayor Peter Scott told local news agency AAP. "But there hasn't been a lot of structural damage." Early reports are that two Cooktown houses and a pub lost their roofs. Authorities had warned that Ita, initially a full-strength category 5 cyclone, would be catastrophic with winds of 230 kilometres per hour blasting away buildings and incessant rain causing widespread flash flooding. But contrary to predictions it came ashore on an ebb tide, limiting flooding and reducing the risk of a storm surge inundating seafront properties. Diana Spiker told the news agency that she was pleasantly surprised when dawn broke. "They were talking about a category 5 at one stage so I thought there'd have been a lot more damage," she said. Queensland state premier Campbell Newman, who is directing relief efforts from Cairns, said wind gusts had torn down power lines and that thousands of homes would be without power until they were put back up.
