Australia: Residents ordered off streets as cyclone nears

Police ordered remaining residents to get off the streets today as one of Australia's biggest-ever storms bore down on the north-east.

Officials issued dire warnings of potential devastation for cities and towns dotted along a stretch of coast more than 190 miles long in north Queensland state, in an area considered the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef.

The storm will compound misery in Queensland, which has already been hit by months of flooding that killed 35 people and inundated hundreds of communities.

Cyclone Yasi is due to hit north of the main waterlogged area, but emergency services are already stretched and the whole state is flood-weary.

"This is a cyclone of savagery and intensity," prime minister Julia Gillard said in a nationally televised news conference. "People are facing some really dreadful hours in front of them."

The first of Cyclone Yasi's winds began howling throughout Cairns as night fell today.

Winds at the centre of the storm were gusting up to 186mph, and the front was about 300 miles across.

The worst winds were expected to last up to four hours, though blustery conditions and heavy rain could last for 24 hours.

The storm will lash the coast with up to 28 inches of rain and send tidal surges far deeper inland than usual, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The bureau said most at risk was an area about 150 miles long between the tourist city of Cairns and the sugar cane-growing town of Ingham. It was unclear what the damage to the Great Barrier Reef would be, experts said.

Queensland officials had been warning people for days to stock up on bottled water and food, and to board or tape up their windows. People in low-lying or poorly protected areas were told to move in with family or friends on safer ground or move to evacuation centres.

"It's such a big storm - it's a monster, killer storm," Queensland premier Anna Bligh said, adding that the only previous storm measured in the state at such strength was in 1918.

"This impact is likely to be more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations," she added.

More than 10,000 people were sheltering in 20 evacuation centres, including one set up in a shopping mall in Cairns.

Police told people to get off the streets of Cairns. "Everyone's gotta go now," one officer told pedestrians strolling near the waterfront. "The water is coming now."

Warnings stretched as far away as Townsville, which is slightly larger than Cairns and about 190 miles to the south.