Australia braces for second big cyclone in two weeks Wed Mar 29, 10:01 AM ET
Australia braced for its second powerful cyclone in two weeks as a "very dangerous" storm bore down on the country's mineral-rich west coast, forcing a halt to some mining and oilfield operations.
Cyclone Glenda was upgraded to the highest category five tropical storm overnight but later weakened slightly to a category four, producing wind gusts of 265 kilometers (165 miles) per hour, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
At 0500 GMT, Glenda was 360 kilometers northeast of Karratha, a giant mining, oil and gas port and support hub. It was heading southwest roughly parallel to the coast at about 14 kilometers per hour.
The bureau forecast that Glenda would make landfall around midday Thursday southwest of Karratha, some 1,200 kilometers north of Perth.
"Residents of the central and west Pilbara coast are warned of the risk of very destructive winds with gusts exceeding 250 kilometres per hour during Thursday close to the centre as this very dangerous cyclone nears the coast," the meteorology bureau said.
The Pilbara is Australia's main iron-ore producing region and hosts a series of offshore oil and gas projects.
These include the 16 billion dollar North West Shelf liquefied natural gas project operated by Woodside Petroleum, and iron ore mines operated by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.
Woodside said it had suspended operations at its 100,000-barrel-per-day Cossack oilfield while Santos shut its 40,000 bpd Mutineer Exeter offshore oilfield.
BHP Billiton said its 10,600 bpd Griffin oilfield in the same region had been closed since Saturday and the company had suspended operations at Port Hedland, north of Karratha, but was continuing mining operations.
Rio Tinto said it had shut down its massive iron ore shipping operations at Cape Lambert and Dampier, both near Karratha.
"At this stage we are in full tie down at the ports, which means basically we have sent all our ships out to sea and stopped all operations at the port," a Rio spokeswoman said.
"We are still continuing to operate mines inland and there is some rail activity there."
Emergency workers in the sparsely populated region urged residents to batten down to avoid a repeat of the devastation caused by a category-five cyclone, Larry, which smashed into the country's tropical northeast on March 20.
Larry destroyed or damaged hundred of homes and wiped out banana and sugar cane crops, leaving a damage bill expected to top one billion dollars (707 million US). No one was killed.
Thousands of homes are still without power and many schools and businesses remain closed in the worst hit areas of Queensland state nine days after Larry struck. |
