Queensland dust storm: Australian town left blanketed in thick dust after it is struck by 124-mile wide storm

Robin de Peyer21 February 2018

An Australian town was blanketed with thick orange dust after a 124-mile wide storm swept through the outback.

The storm hit Charleville in south-west Queensland on Tuesday - leaving trees down and the town covered in red dust.

The scenes came after 60mph winds whipped dust up from the outback, which was particularly dry after a lengthy spell without rain.

Harry Clark, from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, said: "We do see a fair few dust events through the western parts of Queensland because it is such a dry and hot place, but it's definitely one of the more impressive events of the last few years."

Queensland Dust Storm - In pictures

1/8

The dust storm was estimated to be about 124 miles wide, and took many of the town's residents by surprise.

Paige Donald told ABC News: "We heard thunder, so we went outside to make sure the dogs were okay and bring everything inside, and we turned around and there was this big red dust storm coming along — it was pretty thick.

"Our eyes are covered in dust."

Dust cloud: The storm in Charleville
Queensland Police

Police said the storm lasted only a few hours and caused minor damage only.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in