Destructive winds and heavy rain battered western Australia on Tuesday as a cyclone that has flattened scores of homes and knocked down power lines continued its inland march.
A man who had refused to be evacuated from the area near where Cyclone Vance made its landfall was missing and presumed dead.
As it moved inland, Vance’s winds initially were measured at 140 m.p.h., but they dropped to below 100 m.p.h. late Monday.
The cyclone–a term used for a hurricane in the Indian Ocean–moved southeast early Tuesday toward the town of Meekatharra, 370 miles north of Perth, the capital of Western Australia state, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
The town of Exmouth, 780 miles northwest of Perth, bore the brunt of Monday’s damage; 112 homes were destroyed and a trailer park flattened there.
One-third of the town’s houses sustained structural damage.
