Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Zelia slams Australia’s iron ore hub

SYDNEY — Tropical Cyclone Zelia made landfall on Australia’s west coast on Friday, the weather bureau said, lashing the world’s largest iron ore hub with heavy rain and wind gusts up to 180 miles an hour.

The eye of the storm crossed the coast east of Port Hedland just after 12 p.m. (11 p.m. ET Thursday) as a category five cyclone, the highest rating on the scale.

It then moved south and weakened to a category four, sparing the town’s population center from its most destructive winds.

“This is a very dangerous system that will cause significant impact and is causing impacts as we speak,” said Matthew Collopy, a forecaster with Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology.

Cyclone Zelia is the most severe storm to hit the Pilbara coast since Cyclone Ilsa in April 2023.

The bureau warned the system could bring record-breaking rainfall for the resource-rich region in the state of Western Australia, with up to nearly 12 inches of rainfall expected in the next 24 hours and 20 inches over the next three days.

Port Hedland’s port, the world’s biggest iron ore export point, closed on Wednesday, while the ports of Dampier and Varanus Island, a gathering and processing hub for oil and gas, were shut down on Thursday evening. Cape Lambert was also shut.

Iron ore is the primary raw material used to make steel.

Port Hedland’s 15,000 residents, most of whom are mining company employees, have been advised to seek shelter indoors, while non-essential staff have been moved to safe locations.

Some supermarkets have been closed, Australian broadcaster ABC News reported, after essential supplies ran out as people stocked up.