Western Australia braces up for Cyclone Seroja

People living on the coast of Western Australia were preparing themselves on Sunday for the landfall of Cyclone Seroja.

Geraldton (Australia): People living on the coast of Western Australia were preparing themselves on Sunday for the landfall of Cyclone Seroja.

Residents of the city of Geraldton, some 400 km (250 miles) north of Perth, could be seen putting sand bags in their cars as emergency services urged people to protect themselves and their belongings.

"This morning is the last opportunity to get ready and to prepare yourselves for us to go into red alert," said Graham Sears, incident controller at Western Australia's Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

"This is not a Sunday picnic," he warned. "This is real and it's going to get very, very dangerous later on this afternoon with high winds expected up to 165 km an hour (103 mph)."

He predicted damage to power and water supplies.

Authorities provided buses to allow people who weren't sure their properties were safe to leave the area.

Seroja has been assessed as a category two tropical cyclone, meaning there could be destructive winds.

A red alert, advising people to find shelter immediately, has been issued for a 500 km (310 miles) stretch of the Western Australian coast.

AP