Hundreds of Cyclone Tracy survivors and their descendants have gathered in Darwin to mark the 50th anniversary of the disaster. On Christmas Day in 1974, the tropical storm killed 66 people and destroyed 85% of homes in Darwin. The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended the event at East Point Reserve where a new memorial has been unveiled.
Category
đź“ş
TVTranscript
00:00Today in Darwin, survivors have gathered for the 50th anniversary of Cyclone Tracey.
00:08Today is a significant day and one with lots of memories to share.
00:13The organiser of this event was Richard Questwick and today I want to speak with you just about
00:18what this means for survivors.
00:20Can you tell me, I guess, what the significance is of having an event like this for the survivors
00:26of Cyclone Tracey?
00:27Well, this is the 50th anniversary, as you said, but it's the first fully dedicated memorial
00:37to Cyclone Tracey.
00:39There have been lots of other bits and pieces around that are reminders of Cyclone Tracey
00:45but this is a memorial that's designed specifically for Cyclone Tracey and is for survivors but
00:55also for the wider community because essentially it's a memorial for the people but dedicated
01:04to survivors and to those who lost their lives.
01:07And today we saw the unveiling of these beautiful Frangipani monuments.
01:12Can you tell me why it was the Frangipani and what is on those monuments?
01:18Well, prior to the cyclone the Frangipani trees were ubiquitous in Darwin.
01:24Nearly every home had one in the yard, they were in the streets, they were everywhere.
01:30And the choice of the Frangipani flower reflects the fact that after the cyclone that flowers
01:36were strewn from one end of the city to the other and it's the fallen Frangipanis that
01:43are evoked here.
01:45The shelter is evocative of corrugated iron and bent brokenness and we chose the Frangipanis
01:56because of their ubiquitousness, because you can break off a branch of Frangipani, stick
02:03it in the ground and it will grow.
02:06They are a resilient tree and we mark them as resilient, representing the resilience
02:12of the Darwin community.
02:14Absolutely, and something that really touched me was seeing survivors who had lost loved
02:19ones during Cyclone Tracy look for their family members on the Frangipanis and the names that
02:25were shown there.
02:27Do you think a memorial like this and a monument like that helps with healing after what was
02:33probably quite a traumatic event?
02:35I think so.
02:37We hope the entire 50th commemorations that we've organised, the welcome event, the storytelling
02:44event and this unveiling today will be part of a healing process for people who haven't
02:50healed.
02:51There are not many of them but a lot who still carry the trauma.
02:58Well, this is, we hope, a day of closure for them and the response has been tremendous.
03:09We chose to have individual plaques for the names of those who died rather than just your
03:15standard listing of names so we've grouped the people who died at sea together and the
03:23family groups and I think it's a really nice way to commemorate those who died.
03:31Thank you Richard.
03:32Thank you Grace.