Tropical Cyclone Marcia  to make landfall as a category five system

19 February 2015, Nirapad News: Tropical Cyclone Marcia is slowly tracking towards Central Queensland and is due to make landfall as a category five system on Friday morning.

It is due to hit between St Lawrence and Gladstone after dawn.

So far residents in St Lawrence, Clairview, Ogmore and Marlborough have been asked to evacuate.

Police Constable Matt McKinnon said it was in the best interest of locals who had homes built before 1984 to go to shelters.

“The pre-1984 homes are not structurally sound to take that amount of wind gusts,” he said.

A very destructive central core of the cyclone could generate gusts up to 295 kilometers an hour, the Bureau of Meteorology warned.