After the cyclone, over 90% the city consisted of rubble on concrete slabs. The place looked like Hiroshima after the bomb. (some photos: http://www.arafura.net.au/greeksnt/70s.html)

It was a pretty minor event on the world scale, certainly nowhere near as bad an Hurricane Andrew, but for us Aussies it was shocking. You don't expect a state's capital city to vanish.