PERTH, Australia
(Reuters) - A severe tropical cyclone off northwest Australia,
packing winds of up to 280 km (174 miles) an hour, was upgraded
to the most dangerous category on Friday, meteorologists said.
Emergency
plans have been activated to deal with Cyclone Sam, which was
building up in intensity off the sparsely populated coast of Western
Australia state. The cyclone was expected to cross land on Saturday
at Eighty Mile Beach resort settlement, halfway between the holiday
town of Broome and the Port Hedland iron ore port.
"It"s
almost stationary at the moment, only moving southwest at two
kilometres an hour," Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster
Noel Puzey told Reuters. "It"s not going anywhere right
now but it also means the cyclone can sit there and build up in
intensity, which is what it"s done overnight," he said.
Sam was 150
km (93 miles) west of Broome at 2300 GMT on Thursday and was strong
enough to cause major damage when it moved onshore, meteorologists
said. Broome is 1,700 km (1,050 miles) north of the Western Australia
capital of Perth.
Port Hedland
lies 460 km (286 miles) southwest of Broome and houses a centre
for illegal immigrants. Puzey said alerts had been sounded and
emergency plans activated for the cyclone-prone region. Sam is
the first of a string of tropical depressions expected to menace
Australia"s northwest this summer.
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