Australia's remote Norfolk Island braces itself for cyclone impact
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Norfolk Island is bracing itself for Cyclone Gabrielle to bring gale-force winds and very heavy surf.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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SYDNEY - Cyclone Gabrielle, headed for New Zealand, brought destructive winds to Australia’s Norfolk Island on Saturday as it closed in on the tiny external territory in the Pacific Ocean.
Cyclone Gabrielle is a Category 2 tropical cyclone with winds of up to 155kmh.
It is 195km north-west of Norfolk Island, where conditions are deteriorating, Australia’s weather bureau said on Saturday afternoon.
The forecaster said the cyclone’s centre would pass over or near Norfolk Island – an Australian territory 1,500km east of Sydney – on Saturday evening.
The cyclone is then expected to hit northern New Zealand.
In January, Auckland and parts of the North Island were hit by record rainfall that led to widespread floods and killed four people.
Air New Zealand said in a statement that it is cancelling several North Island flights scheduled from Sunday to Tuesday.
Norfolk Island covers just over 34 sq km in the Pacific Ocean, between New Caledonia and New Zealand.
Its roughly 2,000 residents have been fuelling up emergency power generators and tying down outdoor equipment and objects ahead of the cyclone’s arrival.
The island’s emergency management authority issued an alert on Saturday afternoon, saying most businesses would close.
It also urged residents to stay indoors.
“Gale-force winds and high waves are currently developing and conditions may worsen overnight as the centre of the cyclone moves past,” said the Bureau of Meteorology.
It said the weather system, heading towards the island at 20kmh, would bring abnormally heavy rain, high tides and very heavy surf, which it said could cause local damage and coastal erosion.
“We are expecting power outages, trees coming down, the potential for houses to lose roofs,” Norfolk Island administrator Eric Hutchinson told national broadcaster ABC.
“We’ve had a couple of days to prepare, so we’ll deal with the recovery as needed,” he said.
“The community are doing the right thing and we’re in as good a place as we can be,” Mr Hutchinson added.
Now known as an idyllic tourist destination, Norfolk Island was once a notoriously brutal British penal colony dubbed the “Hell of the Pacific”.
It was abandoned by the mid-1850s, but later re-settled by descendants of the British sailors who carried out an infamous mutiny on the HMS Bounty in 1789.
Australia’s mainland is not expected to be hit by the cyclone.
But in New Zealand some North Island regions including Auckland – the country’s biggest city – have been preparing for bad weather.
The country’s weather forecaster, MetService, said it expects Cyclone Gabrielle to move towards New Zealand in the coming days.
“We expect to see (the) impacts from this cyclone from Sunday, starting in the north and spreading south to other parts of northern and central New Zealand,” the forecaster said on Saturday.
Auckland Emergency Management said the city is likely to be hit by the cyclone’s strong winds on Sunday night, with the worst of the cyclone’s impact forecast for Monday and Tuesday.
Winds of up to 140kmh, or possibly higher, have been predicted from Monday, the agency said. AFP, REUTERS
