Severe tropical cyclone Damien made landfall at the industrial port of Dampier with its impact being felt in the nearby city of Karratha and throughout the region. Dozens of homes are without power and trees have been flattened as Damien batters Western Australia’s northern coast.
The Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) said heavy rain had hit the region as a red alert weather warning is in place for the state’s Pilbara region.
The category three cyclone is causing gusts of up to 134mph near its centre and is the strongest cyclone to hit land in the area since 2013.
Port Hedland, the world’s largest iron ore port, has been been cleared of all vessels ahead its arrival.
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BoM officials are urging residents of some coastal areas to seek shelter.
A spokesman for the agency said: “Residents between Dampier and Whim Creek, including Dampier and Karratha, are warned of the potential of a very dangerous storm tide as the cyclone centre crosses the coast.
“Tides are likely to rise significantly above the normal high tide mark with damaging waves and very dangerous flooding.”
Mr Bennett said another surge of destructive weather is going to hit the area as the second eye wall passes through.
He said: “It’s still a very powerful system after the eye goes through.
“The wind drops off really, really quickly because the eye passes over you but they pick up at the other end. It’s a very rapid increase in wind speed.”
Sparsely populated Western Australia is also facing several severe fire warnings with hot temperatures expected in most of the state.
After months of destructive wildfires that have razed millions of hectares of land, Australia has been hit in recent weeks by wild weather that has brought heavy downpours, hail storms and heat waves.
New South Wales saw some areas drenched by the heaviest rainfall in almost 20 years by Saturday, with severe weather and flash flood warnings.
Bureau of Meteorology New South Wales manager Jane Golding said: “Potentially we haven’t seen anything like this since the late 1990s.”
There were still more than 40 active fires in New South Wales on Saturday, half of them yet to be contained, but fire services said the downpours, which are expected to continue into next week, may dampen them.