Australia Cyclone: Yasi Descends On The Mainland (RAW VIDEO)

Cyclone Yasi made landfall today, tearing roofs from houses, ripping branches from trees, and causing general destruction.

The cyclone, which made landfall in northern Queensland, brought winds of up to 186 mph and almost 30 foot waves, according to the Guardian. Recently a category 5, the now category 3 cyclone, continues to travel inland, where it should begin to die down late Thursday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Yasi's incredibly powerful winds can be seen below, ripping branches from trees with tremendous gusts. The Guardian reports that the cyclone also downed numerous power-lines as residents slept in evacuation centers.

Yasi is apparently the largest tropical storm to hit the continent since Europeans settled there, even out-sizing Larry, a cyclone that destroyed 10,000 homes 5 years ago.

"It is just a scene of mass devastation," one witness told the Guardian. "Larry was a boy compared to this."

WATCH:

Comments

[jmundstuk]

02:50 AM on 02/04/2011

Well done, Ozzies. Hope Aboriginal communities there shared in the preparations and relatively good news.

[NanaMex]

05:06 AM on 02/04/2011

Most did, however there were a couple of communities that were forgotten. Not right, and it is hoped this will be remedied before the next disaster.

That said, many Aboriginal communities prefer to take care of themselves, having had enough of 'good intentions' whitefella help. After all, they were taking care of themselves quite well for 40,000 years before Europeans came along. :)

[NanaMex]

01:09 AM on 02/04/2011

One person confirmed dead, 2 missing, 17 cases of looting. Not a bad record for the biggest storm in memory.

2000 troops on the ground to assist, PM & Premier in the air and on the ground as soon as they could. Volunteers pouring in to help with the clean up.

Keep in mind that it's far from over. The storm continues to pound western Queensland, NT and SA. Rain still falling in many places where roofs are gone and windows blown out. Wellies are the fashion.

Brent Lillie said it best when he said "Too Right I'm From Queensland" (how the hell did you guess) Listen on his myspace. http://www.myspace.com/brentlilliemusic

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

[violimo]

04:34 AM on 02/03/2011

Yes, we have no bananas! Wiped out 90% of Australia's banana and sugar crop. No injuries or lives lost. No-one freaking out in the evac. centres even after they lost power. And a baby was born in the middle of the event. Kiss my Yasi!

[Marturia]

07:18 PM on 02/03/2011

You have a great attitude. Stay safe!

[NanaMex]

12:25 AM on 02/04/2011

Unfortunately there is at least one death, and the devastation is far from over as the storm continues into NT and SA. Even Melbourne is braced for flash floods. It ain't over yet. That said, Australians know how to take it on the chin and how to dig in to get the job done when it comes to rebuilding.

[UncleSquinky]

02:16 AM on 02/03/2011

What climate change? Record droughts and wildfires followed by massive cyclones.

And the Aussies aren't helping themselves either, pumping out more CO2 per capita than any other country and mining and shipping to China even more coal.

[french queen13]

02:09 PM on 02/03/2011

Don't remind me! Both our major parties are in the pockets of the coal industry. They're not interested in what Australians actually want, which is serious action on changing our energy sources.

[NanaMex]

12:17 AM on 02/04/2011

Unfortunately most governments don't care what their people want.

Australia has some of the best alternative energy technology in the world, but most of the developers are building their systems in other countries because they can't get support here. Under Howard alternative energy development was totally neglected, and I had hopes that this government would not follow that path. Kevin was on the right path with the so called 'coal tax' levy on the resources industry, which is why he was booted out.

We have a tremendous resource in solar energy, with huge swaths of land suitable for massive solar farms. In many places here the wind literally never stops, so wind turbines are very suited for providing energy, and up top in places like Broome and Port Hedland we have some of the biggest tides in the world, well suited to tidal generating stations.

Australia could easily be self sufficient and green, power wise, if the polluting mining and resources companies were charged a fair amount for the plundering of this country and the funds raised put back into the economy to build greener infrastructure. The weather disasters have given us a wonderful opportunity to rebuild in a greener fashion.

[Susan Shaffer]

01:37 AM on 02/03/2011

my question is then "is global warming necessarily bad?"
humans are able to solve problems, perhaps the job is to change the crops according to the new weather patterns. build homes able to withstand the new weather. used to be people built shingle homes and burned wood to heat them and now they can still have shingles but they are usually insulated and therefore energy costs are reduced both in winter and summer.

[alteredstory]

09:06 AM on 02/03/2011

It is bad, unfortunately. The problem is that without a massive change to our energy system, every adaptation we make will cost more energy, which will pump out more CO2. This is a cumulative problem. At the current rate of emissions, and rate of increasing emissions, by 2100, we will have a CO2 concentration last seen when the earth was 29 degrees hotter on average (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110113141607.htm).

Global warming has also been tied to catastrophic extinction events throughout history (http://climatecrocks.com/2011/01/31/graph-of-the-day-co2-and-extinction-events/), including one where 90% of all living creatures on the planet died (http://climatecrocks.com/2011/01/28/nova-permian-extinction/).

It's hard to tell how far in the future all that is, but it's NOT something that's worth messing around with in my opinion.

At this point we will HAVE to do some of the adaptation you're talking about, but if we're using fossil fuels to do it, we will never be able to keep up, because we'll be adding to the problem with every change we make to deal with the problem.

We can get through this, but it will take massive investments in efficiency, and a complete change in our source of power.

p.s. sorry about the format with all the links, but I wanted you to have my sources available.

[greyhound2]

11:30 AM on 02/03/2011

So if the USA cuts emissions by 20%, and China and India increase theirs by 40%, where's the gain?

[Susan Shaffer]

03:14 PM on 02/03/2011

thanks for that.
i feel that there has not been enough information for the general public in regards to historical data and the consequences.
my first idea is finding some bacteria/algae or similar type life form that can absorb CO2 but at the same time generate energy.
the balance of CO2 in the atmosphere so that we can exist is our first priority. the second priority is of course having enough food.
if there exists such a life form that can be contained should it move the
co2 level too low. maybe a food technologist could convert this bacteria/algae into a food source for humans would be good too.

[alteredstory]

09:54 AM on 02/03/2011

Um, sorry to be so blunt.

What little training I have is in ecology, which is the study of how living systems interact, and when an ecosystem collapses, it's not pretty, and it's generally a bad thing. The more you follow the consequences of a changing climate, the worse it looks. The thing is, climate is everything to us. It's the beer we drink, and the food we eat, and it's the wood we burn in the winter.

Climate change is also causing a collapse in the ocean, and in 20-50 years, the phrase "there are lots of good fish in the sea" will be a thing of the past. We rely heavily on the ecosystems of this planet, and we've been acting like we don't. It's easy to see WHY we act that way, but it's false pride. We're still connected to the rest of the world, and dependent on it in many, many ways.

[Susan Shaffer]

01:37 AM on 02/03/2011

to put this into perspective: cyclone larry hit 5 years ago to this same area and did a lot of damage. 10,000 homes had been destroyed. since then there has been improvements in building codes. the architects and engineers devised new ways to make the roof stay on. most of the damage to homes has been from flying things such as boats.
plenty of trees were uprooted and of course brought down power lines.
the biggest disaster from this is actually loss of crops. the banana plantations were flattened.
we are discussing with aboriginal tribes who own a lot of northern australia to use their land to grow crops such as rice which requires a lot of water. this cyclonic activity is not necessarily a bad thing. the monsoon season which depends on a similar cyclonic activity that hits the subcontinent means that they can produce rice and in copious amounts.
Australia is a notoriously dry continent. I do think that the increased size and frequency of cyclones is due to human activity. modelling of global warming had predicted that australia would become more dry due to global warming and yet this last year australia has had more water fall on it than has for a long time

[alteredstory]

09:10 AM on 02/03/2011

It really depends on what happens the rest of this year. If Australia gets three feet of rain in a month, and none the rest of the year, then it won't help much with water shortages.

All this water is still devastating, and food prices around the world are going up because of it.

In addition, things are generally getting more chaotic, and being unable to rely on what weather you're getting in what season makes agriculture nearly impossible.

[ErnestineBass]

11:39 PM on 02/02/2011

In 1976 a friend of mine was stationed at the naval base in Guam when Super Typhoon Pamela roared through and pretty much flattened the island. When I asked him what the max wind speed was he said, "Nobody really knows...at about 200 kilometers an hour, all the weather equipment including the anemometer blew away." I cracked up laughing.

[quoveritas]

11:35 PM on 02/02/2011

That's an awful lot of moisture....I wonder where it melted from? hmmmm......

[alteredstory]

09:11 AM on 02/03/2011

Didn't melt from anywhere. It was picked up through evaporation from the ocean. The driving factor for a storm like this is that the ocean is warmer than usual.

[quoveritas]

10:42 AM on 02/03/2011

That 'warming' is due to more fresh water melt from the poles.

[Candide33]

11:20 PM on 02/02/2011

Stay safe friends!!! hope to hear from you'll in the morning.

[ken607]

09:05 AM on 02/03/2011

you forgot "to live long and prosper"

[dutchdragonfly]

11:15 PM on 02/02/2011

Not one person in my office had heard anything about Yasi this morning. No one had even heard of it. I understand Egypt and massive snows are front and center news here right now, but.. oh I don't know what I mean. I'm just amazed. Disappointed I guess.

Anyway, we searched the daily paper to see what -if any- coverage there was, and on page A3 there was a little 2- inch article on the approaching cyclone.

But I just wanted to say that I, (and now 8 more people from my office) are sending wishes for a hopeful outcome to our friends Down Under.

[NanaMex]

11:24 PM on 02/02/2011

http//www.abc.net.au/news :)

[DesperOde]

12:52 AM on 02/03/2011

Best of luck. Here's another view to see where it is headed.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDE00900.loop.shtml

[Wanderland]

10:55 PM on 02/02/2011

My best to everyone affected. It will take a while to get over this, especially since it comes right after record flooding.

[Dukedraven]

10:05 PM on 02/02/2011

Why in the heck were they calling this storm Katrina in the beginning?

[foxisms]

10:21 PM on 02/02/2011

Gotcha factor.

[ThinkCreeps]

05:10 AM on 02/03/2011

Because it was similar in size and strength.

Katrina weakened before landfall, Yasi did not. Australians heeded evacuation warnings, some americans did not. Australians seem to have remembered not to build cities below sea level in hurricane zones, some americans did not.

[Dukedraven]

09:53 AM on 02/03/2011

My bad. I read an article and it said this storm is called Katrina a few days ago.

[GraphicMatt]

10:33 AM on 02/03/2011

Pretty sure it was the French that originally built New Orleans....

[MIKEBC]

09:56 PM on 02/02/2011

As soon as it dries up I'll go walkabout!

[ken607]

09:05 AM on 02/03/2011

have a fosters for me.

[JernauMoratGurgeh]

09:57 AM on 02/03/2011

Nobody in Australia drinks Fosters!

[JernauMoratGurgeh]

09:33 PM on 02/02/2011

I am very impressed by the work of the Bureau of Meteorology and Emergency Management Queensland in accuratley predicting this cyclone, and ensuring everyone was well prepared for it.

I find it very heartening that the biggest and most powerful cyclone to have hit Australia in almost 100 years has no reported casualties at all so far.

[alteredstory]

10:50 PM on 02/02/2011

aye

[pinkpantheroz]

11:04 PM on 02/02/2011

A Miracle. Kudos to the Queensland Government and the citizens for paying attention to the warnings

[CoronaDischarge]

08:46 PM on 02/02/2011

Godspeed to all of Queensland as they cope with the remnants and recover from this hit they've taken..