Relief as Australia mops up from giant cyclone

Cyclone Yasi, roughly the size of Italy and packing winds of up to around 300 km per hour (186 miles per hour), threatened Australia with its second major natural disaster in as many months this week but ended up missing heavily populated areas.

"It's amazing no-one was killed. The wind was howling like a banshee," said farmer Nathan Fisher, speaking out the window of his four-wheel-drive vehicle as he returned to his property from a shelter in the small town of Innisfail.

Australia, a vast continent with less than three people for every square km, is one of the few countries where a storm as large and terrifying as Yasi -- with a diameter of up to around 500 km (310 miles) -- could simply miss major cities.

Even as Yasi began its 1,000 km (620 mile) inland march into the outback on Thursday, weakening all the time, tracking forecasts showed it was likely to hit only a handful of small towns in a region home to around 400,000 people.

The lack of any major damage or substantial casualties was also attributed to several days of cyclone preparation, early evacuations, laws that ensure newer homes and buildings are strong enough to survive a cyclone, and less than expected sea flooding as the cyclone missed the peak tides.

The cyclone came ashore around midnight along hundreds of km of coast in Queensland state and then drove inland,

"Early reports have given us all a great sense of relief," Queensland Premier Anna Bligh told reporters, adding the cyclone emergency was still unfolding.

"Some people in this region will be going back to their communities, going back to their neighbourhoods, and facing scenes of considerable devastation."

Yasi was rated a maximum-strength category five storm, on a par with Hurricane Katrina, which wrecked New Orleans in 2005, killing 1,500 people and causing $81 billion in damage.

It was downgraded to a category-two storm as it moved inland but its core remained very destructive, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The biggest impact could be on the economy. Sugarcane crops had been damaged, with initial estimates suggesting around 15 percent of the national sugar crop could be lost. The industry estimated that one area, accounting for about a third of the crop, had suffered up to 50 percent losses

Australia is the world's third largest raw sugar exporter.

Some coal mines remained shut after the cyclone passed, although others were starting to resume operations. Queensland accounts for 90 percent of Australia's steelmaking coal exports.