Schools are closed, public transport has stopped and desperate householders 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.

Australia braced for a rare east coast tropical cyclone that is swirling towards Brisbane, its third-most populous city, with authorities urging residents in flood-prone suburbs to evacuate soon.

Millions of residents along Australia’s eastern coast are preparing for the impact of the most southerly cyclone to threaten the region in more than five decades. Tropical Cyclone Alfred is expected to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday with the strength of a category 1 Atlantic hurricane,