SYDNEY: Two small Western Australian towns suffered “widespread damage” when Cyclone Seroja struck part of the country that rarely experiences tropical storms, emergency services said on Monday. The storm, which devastated parts of Indonesia and East Timor last week, brought lashing rain and winds of up to 170 kilometers per hour to areas officials said had not seen a tropical cyclone in “decades.” Public broadcaster ABC reported 70 percent of structures in Kalbarri — home to about 1,500 people — had been damaged. Local media images showed homes with their roofs ripped off and debris scattered across streets.In Northampton, a town of less than 1,000 people about an hour’s drive south, there was also “widespread damage,” Western Australia’s emergency services department said.Cyclone Seroja made landfall as a category 3 storm late Sunday, before crossing the continent’s southwest and being downgraded to a tropical low Monday morning. AFP
