CAIRNS, Australia - The most powerful storm to hit Australia in three decades laid waste to its northeastern coast Monday, mowing down sugar and banana plantations with 180 mph winds but causing no deaths or serious injuries.Innisfail, a farming town of 8,500 located about 60 miles south of the tourist city of Cairns, was hardest hit, and Mayor Neil Clarke estimated that thousands of residents were left homeless.
More than 100,000 people were without power, and the damage was estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Prime Minister John Howard pledged immediate cash handouts to the homeless and said more help would be forthcoming.
"The damage to dwellings is very extensive," Howard told the Nine Network from Melbourne. "Thank heavens it does not appear as though there have been any very serious injuries."
Clarke told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. the local airport was being cleared to house people in tents.
The town's main street was littered with mangled tin and iron roofs and shredded fronds from seaside palm trees.
"It looks like an atomic bomb hit the place," Clarke said. "We won't even have any water to drink by tomorrow."
Cyclone Larry crashed ashore south of Cairns as a Category 5 storm. Cairns is a popular jumping-off point for tourists to the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral system that runs parallel to the coast for more than 1,400 miles.
Authorities said it was too early to assess possible damage to the reef, visited by nearly 2 million tourists each year.
David Wachenfeld, director of science at the government body that cares for the reef, said the worst-hit area of the reef was not one that was popular with tourists. He said it would recover — though that could take 20 years.
About 30 people were treated at hospitals for minor cuts and abrasions, said Ben Creagh, a spokesman for Queensland state Department of Emergency Services. The human toll was low because people were warned about the cyclone's approach over the weekend and either boarded up their homes and fled or hunkered down or went to evacuation centers in town while the storm raged outside, Creagh said.