Schools closed as rare cyclone approaches Australia’s eastern coast

Early wind and rain from a rare tropical cyclone began lashing parts of eastern Australia on Thursday.

Tropical Cyclone Alfred is forecast to cross the Queensland state coast somewhere between the Sunshine Coast region and the city of Gold Coast to the south early on Saturday, Bureau of Meteorology manager Matt Collopy said.

Between the two tourist strips is the state capital Brisbane, Australia’s third-most populous city which will host the 2032 Olympic Games.

“The wind impacts, we’re already seeing those start to develop on the exposed locations along our coast with gusts reaching 80 to 90kph (50 to 56mph). We are expecting those to continue to develop,” Mr Collopy told reporters in Brisbane.

Alfred is expected to become the first cyclone to cross the coast near Brisbane since Cyclone Zoe hit Gold Coast in 1974 and brought widespread flooding.

Cyclones are common in Queensland’s tropical north but are rare in the state’s temperate and densely populated southeast corner that borders the state of New South Wales.

More than four million people lie in the cyclone’s path.

Alfred was 170 miles east of Brisbane and moving west on Thursday with sustained winds near the centre of 95kph (59mph) and gusting to 130kph (81mph), Mr Collopy said.

The storm is expected to maintain its wind strength before hitting land.

The greatest fears are for the expected flooding over a wide area. Modelling shows that up to 20,000 homes in Brisbane, a city largely built on a river floodplain, could experience some level of flooding.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese said 660 schools in southern Queensland and 280 schools in northern New South Wales were closed on Thursday as weather conditions worsen.

The federal government had delivered 310,000 sandbags to Brisbane and more were on the way, Mr Albanese said.

“My message to people, whether they be in southeast Queensland or northern New South Wales, is we are there to support you. We have your back,” he told reporters in the national capital Canberra.

A shortage of sandbags in Brisbane, a city of more than three million people, led some to buy sacks of potting mix as an alternative, according to Damien Effeney, a chief executive of a rural supplies business.

“I think between availability and the time that people have to queue to get sandbags, they’re just making the easier choice and grabbing potting mix,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, adding one customer bought 30 bags from his store at Samford on Brisbane’s northwest fringe.

Several Brisbane sandbag collection points were either empty or people had to line up for hours to collect available sandbags. A beach volleyball business complained some of its sand had been stolen to fill bags.

Brisbane streets were largely empty of traffic and supermarket shelves had been stripped bare of basics including bread, milk, bottled water and batteries.

Public transport in the area was stopped from Thursday and hospitals were limited to performing emergency surgeries until the danger had passed.

Strong winds had cut power to 4,500 homes and businesses in northern New South Wales on Thursday, officials said.

Rivers were rising across the region due to rain and emergency teams were preparing to start evacuating people from low-lying areas on the New South Wales side of the border.

The coast near the border has been battered for days by abnormally high tides and seas. A 12.3-metre high wave recorded off a popular Gold Coast beach on Wednesday night was a record for the area, officials said.

People living in the cyclone’s path gained an additional 24 hours to batten down after meteorologists revised their forecast of the cyclone making land to late Thursday or early Friday.

But the cyclone’s slower progress towards the coast had a downside, meteorologist Jane Golding said.

“We’ll have longer for the rain to fall and the wind to do the damage,” Ms Golding said.