Cyclone Wati was churning slowly toward northeast Australia and was expected to be off the coast later in the week, several hundred kilometres south of the region hammered by Cyclone Larry, a Category 5 storm with winds up to 290 km/h (180 mph), Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre senior forecaster Jeff Callahan said.

Wati is expected to turn south in about a day or so, and then move parallel to the coast. If it stays out to sea, as expected, the likely impact could be high waves and maybe gale force winds at sea.

The Weather Bureau said that at 10 am Tuesday (11 p.m. Monday GMT), Wati was located over the eastern Coral Sea about 475 nautical miles east north-east of Mackay and moving west at about 14 knots.

The bureau said it was expected to maintain this movement until Wednesday morning, when it would slow down.

Hardest hit was Innisfail, a town of 8,500 people 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the tourist city of Cairns.

Australian troops began moving aid to Innisfail on Tuesday as residents picked through waterlogged streets littered with rubble and mangled roofs.

Stephen Young, deputy executive director of Queensland's Counter Disaster and Emergency Services, said relief was flowing to Innisfail from all over Australia.

CNN