The Christmas Cyclone
In 1974, on Christmas day, Australia experienced the most damaging cyclone in its history. Cyclone Tracy rolled through Darwin without warning, ruining nearly 70% of the city.
This terrible cyclone is thought to have taken around 71 lives and left a damage bill of about $500-600 million (equivalent to $2.5 to $3 billion now). Nearly 30,000 people had no homes, with only a small 6% of the houses left unscathed.
