'I want to go home': Starving and distraught tourist's nightmare
As Queensland mops up Cyclone Debbie’s path of destruction, one stranded tourist has recalled her night of horror.
Standing alone on a deserted Airlie Beach corner, the distraught Melbourne woman told 7 News she hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours after a terrifying night curled up in the hotel bathroom.
“I just want to go home, I just want to go home,” the shivering backpacker told 7 News.
“I came up with mum from Melbourne to have just some time away, we weren’t expecting this.
“We’re trying to get some food and water, at the moment we’ve got nothing.”
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The category four cyclone brought wind gusts in excess of 260km/h to the coastal town of Airlie Beach, destroying homes, ripping trees from the ground and even shifting the town jetty.
“We stayed in the bathroom and barricaded all the windows off with the mattresses we could find… that’s all we could do,” the backpacker added.
Meanwhile 61,000 Queensland homes remain without power as the Australian Army head into areas hit hardest by the cyclone.
Authorities in north Queensland are dealing with 600 requests for help but expect that to rapidly climb into the thousands.
