Schools are closed, public transport has stopped and desperate residents are getting around shortages of sandbags by buying sacks of potting mix as a region of eastern Australia is lashed by wind and rain from a rare approaching tropical cyclone.

Ice Cube has found himself caught in the chaos of Cyclone Alfred, with the rap icon stranded at his Gold Coast hotel as the storm barrels toward Australia’s southeastern coast.

Millions of residents along Australia’s eastern coast are bracing for the arrival of a very slow-moving storm, the most southerly tropical cyclone to threaten the region in more than 50 years.