Tracy: A Force of Nature on ABC and ABC iview – It was the darkest Christmas in Australia’s history. Sixty-six dead, 41,000 left homeless, and 70 per cent of the northern capital destroyed.
Christmas Day 1974, and the once-tropical paradise of Darwin was reduced to rubble, razed to the ground as a severe tropical cyclone carved a path of destruction through the Top End, ripping homes from their foundations, tossing cars through the air, and snapping steel poles like matchsticks.
Small but intense, Cyclone Tracy was like no other system before, or after it, in Australia. Its unexpected path to the city saw winds reach 217 kilometres an hour, before all weather instruments were destroyed by the ferocity.
For those who lived through the terror that was Christmas Eve 50 years ago, their lives would never be the same. In this one-hour ABC special, survivors tell of the tragedy and triumph in the days, months and years that followed. From the terrifying moment the storm hit, to the carnage it left in its wake, to the mass evacuation of its population, and eventually, the determination it took to rebuild a city that was wiped out by nature.
Featuring never-before-told stories of survival against the odds and some of the ABC’s most incredible archival footage, Tracy is a moving and confronting testament to one of Australia’s worst ever natural disasters, told by those who were there in vivid detail.
Production credit: An ABC NEWS production. Narrated by Leigh Sales. Writer / Producer – Matt Garrick. Executive Producer – Amy Culpritt.
Tracy: A Force of Nature on ABC and ABC iview – Monday 23 December at 7.30pm
TV Central ABC content HERE
Tracy: A Force of Nature on ABC and ABC iview
