Cyclone Tracy

Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, from Christmas Eve to Christmas Day, 1974. It is the most compact hurricane or equivalent-strength tropical cyclone on record in the Australian basin, with gale-force winds extending only 48 kilometres (30 mi) from the centre and was the most compact system world-wide until 2008 when Tropical Storm Marco of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season broke the record, with gale-force winds extending only 19 kilometres (12 mi) from the centre. After forming over the Arafura Sea, the storm moved upward and affected the city with Category 4 winds on the Australian cyclone intensity scale, while there is evidence to suggest that it had reached Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale when it made landfall. Tracy killed 71 people, caused $837 million in damage (1974 AUD) and destroyed more than 70 percent of Darwin's buildings, including 80 percent of houses. Tracy left homeless more than 20,000 out of the 49,000 inhabitants of the city prior to landfall and required the evacuation of over 30,000 people.

Autorentext

Homa Babai has an MA in TEFL from Urmia University, Iran. Her research interests include teacher effectiveness and intercultural communication. Karim Sadeghi, assistant professor of TESOL, has a PhD from the University of East Anglia, UK. His current research focuses on research evaluation and assessment in ELT.