The Bureau of Meteorology has declared a cyclone warning for Darwin, as Tropical Cyclone Fina approaches the Northern Territory coast.<\/p>\n
The Tiwi Islands and parts of western Arnhem Land are also within the warning area.<\/p>\n
Cyclone Fina is currently a category one system, but is expected to increase to category two on Friday, with a chance it could reach category three late on Friday or Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
Schools have been closed until further notice in the communities of Minjilang, Warruwi, Milikapiti and Pirlangimpi.<\/p>\n
Charles Darwin University has closed its campuses in Darwin, AFL NT has called off all weekend matches and ferry services have been suspended between Darwin, the Tiwi Islands and Mandorah.<\/p>\n
Schools in Darwin remain open for now.<\/p>\n
Territory Emergency Operations Group Incident Controller Superintendent Kirsten Engels told ABC Radio Darwin the key message for Territorians was “don’t panic”.<\/p>\n
“Just keep preparing, that\u2019s the key \u2013 preparation,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We want people to be ready, really take this seriously now, this system may bring gales and destructive winds and intense rainfall.<\/p>\n
“Keep preparing if you\u2019re not already but take this seriously please.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Superintendent Kirsten Engels says urged residents to stay at home when the cyclone reached Darwin. (ABC News: Felicity James)<\/p>\n
Superintendent Engels said non-essential workers were not being directed to stay home at this stage and hospitals and health facilities “remain fully operational”.<\/p>\n
When the cyclone does hit Darwin, Superintendent Engels urged residents to stay at home.<\/p>\n
“Keep your preparations going, enact your plans, don\u2019t get out there on those roads, we don\u2019t want people to be a flood-wit,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We want people to keep their common sense when it comes to driving around once the impact start being felt.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bureau of Meteorology has declared a cyclone warning for Darwin, as Tropical Cyclone Fina approaches the Northern…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":393492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4740,186067,13265,186068,50,13263,9270,10828],"class_list":{"0":"post-393491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-cyclone","10":"tag-darwin","11":"tag-fina","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-nt","14":"tag-tropical","15":"tag-warning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115585026002888735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}