Acabo de mirar en el Australian News (
http://www.abc.net.au/news/australia/) y por lo que comentan, están sonando todas las sirenas (tipo EE.UU. con los tornados) en toda la costa norte australiana.
Sirens sound as cyclone nears NT coastEmergency sirens have sounded at Nhulunbuy on the Northern Territory's Gove Peninsula, calling people to cyclone shelters. Communities across Arnhem Land are on alert this morning, as cyclone Monica edges closer to the Northern Territory coast.
The category 5 system, which brought floods to north Queensland last week, has core wind gusts of 320 kilometres an hour.
It is expected to make landfall later today.
Gales with gusts up to 120 kilometres an hour are being experienced between Cape Shield and Elcho Island.
Emergency services in Nhulunbuy opened the town's cyclone shelter at 8:00pm ACST yesterday because 70 people were lining up outside to get in.
Maliti Yunipingu is in the shelter with his family and he says he is worried about the size of cyclone Monica.
"I've been here last year when cyclone Ingrid came through," he said. "It's got bad to worse."
Resident Joanne James says the region is bracing for the worst.
"There's an enormous amount of demountable buildings, which a lot of the contractor people who support the mine live in, and they're fairly demountable," she said.
"They're not particularly cyclone-coded to any degree, certainly not for a category 5 cyclone."
The weather bureau's acting regional director, Mike Bergin, says the centre of the cyclone will track to the north of Nhulunbuy but significant rain and winds will still cause trouble in the town.
"Some of the outer rain bands during the afternoon are likely to produce some significant wind gusts as well, so although the centre of the system is likely to track to the north of Nhulunbuy the outer rain bands are still likely to be a problem," Mr Bergin said.
Darwin warnedMr Bergin says Darwin residents need to start thinking about their cyclone preparations.
He expects cyclone Monica will track in a general westerly direction over the next few days.
"We're not expecting the gale-force winds to extend to the Darwin area until early on Tuesday morning, but people need to be thinking about what they might need to do preparation-wise between now and then," he said.
Schools closedMeanwhile, the Chief Minister has approved the closure of schools between Nhulunbuy and Maningrida until at least Wednesday.
Tuesday is a public holiday and the Northern Territory Government says it will reassess the situation late in the day and tell staff and students what will happen for the rest of the week.
The deputy chief executive in charge of schools, John Dove, says the Education Department is closely monitoring the situation through the counter disaster council.
"Some of the schools will be used as evacuation centres or emergency shelters," he said.
"We also think, in terms of the safety of the students at this time and if there's any chance of the cyclone being in the area, then it's better off that they are with their parents and somewhere safe."
En Darwin han activado todas alertas y están preparando los planes de emergencia.