Three people were feared dead and up to 20 injured today as a powerful tropical cyclone swept across Australia's northwest coast, tearing roofs from homes and sweeping into a mining camp with destructive winds.
Cyclone George struck the coast of Western Australia near the remote iron ore exporting terminal at Port Hedland with 275 km/h winds, disrupting mining and oil operations in the worst storm to hit the region since Cyclone Vance in 1999.
A satellite image from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology shows Cyclone George over Western Australia and Cyclone Jacob approaching behind it.
The cyclone, which forecasters said may have been a maximum level five storm as it crossed the coast, hit a mine construction camp owned by Fortescue Metals Group, Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter said.
The camp, 100 kilometres south of Port Hedland, was one of three in the area, each holding around 300 people.
The WA Fire and Emergency Services Authority said it hoped to get a helicopter to the area to evacuate the injured to hospital.
Fortescue confirmed one death and several injuries, but high winds were making it difficult to reach the area.
A second storm, tropical cyclone Jacob, was also heading towards Western Australia, but it was still far off the coast, south of Australia's remote Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.
The cyclones have forced the shutdown of almost half the country's oil production, with at least 180,600 barrels per day (bpd) of offshore production shut in. Australia produced about 418,000 barrels of oil per day in 2006, according to government figures.
The Bureau of Meteorology said winds would ease through the day as cyclone George moved inland. Cyclones are a regular feature of the Australian summer in the tropical north and the season still has another month to run.
The most deadly on record was Cyclone Tracy, which killed 65 people in the northern city of Darwin in 1974.