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Ship runs aground amid fierce storm in Australia

Spectators look on as waves batter a coal freighter that ran aground in Newcastle, Australia, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

Wild weather brought chaos to Australia's east coast yesterday, driving a huge freighter aground in tumultuous seas, sweeping cars into flooded rivers, disrupting flights and cutting power lines.

Helicopter rescue pilots braved gale-force winds to airlift 21 crew from the stricken ship as giant waves threatened to beach several other vessels, sparking a series of distress calls as they were dragged closer to the coast.

The Filipino and South Korean crew on board the 30,000-tonne coal carrier Pasha Bulker, which ran aground off Newcastle harbor north of Sydney, were winched from the deck one by one and flown ashore, officials said.

Monstrous waves crashed over the Panama-registered freighter as it lay grounded on a reef just a couple of hundred meters off a popular swimming beach, dramatic television footage of the maritime disaster showed.

"It's getting absolutely belted at the moment, it's an amazing sight, the spray coming right over the top of this huge tanker," a witness said.

The hull of the ship was intact and did not appear to be leaking any of its 700 tonnes of fuel oil but was "taking a pounding," a spokesman for the New South Wales maritime authority said.

There were concerns for several other ships off the coast as waves reached a reported height of 17m, New South Wales Ports Minister Joe Tripodi said.

The national transport ministry said the Sea Confidence and Betis were both expected to run aground as they struggled about a nautical mile (1.8km) offshore north of Newcastle.

Another ship, the Coral Emerald, was also in distress and dragging its anchor but was a bit further out, a spokeswoman said.

The weather also wreaked havoc on shore, with police saying they had received several emergency calls about cars being swept off roads.

In the worst incident, five people were missing in floodwaters after a road collapsed in Somersby, north of Sydney, an ambulance spokeswoman said.

Another search for an elderly couple believed to have been in a car swept off a bridge in the lower Hunter Valley, also north of Sydney, had been called off until daybreak due to bad weather and darkness, a police spokeswoman said.

The weather, which was expected to get worse, blacked out at least 6,000 homes in Sydney and caused delays to international and domestic flights at Sydney Airport.
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