Residents of Australia?s northern capital of Darwin rushed to supermarkets yesterday to stock up on food as the unpredictable cyclone Ingrid headed along a path just north of the city. The cyclone, which has terrorised northern Australia for a week generating winds of up to almost 300 kilometres (186 miles) an hour and building up to the maximum intensity of five on the Australian weather scale, on Sunday edged north of Darwin to hit remote mining and Aboriginal communities.

Yesterday night it was headed for the Tiwi Islands, just 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Darwin, where 200 of the mostly aboriginal residents were evacuated. Darwin?s 110,000 residents, who pride themselves on a rugged independent lifestyle, waited tensely to see where the cyclone would hit.

Police asked Darwin residents to prepare to move to cyclone shelters, but not before officially directed. Darwin?s population was preparing cyclone kits of food, water, torches and batteries, Darwin officials said. ?People are storing up?, grocer Bob Veltman said on Australian TV.

Darwin would be buffeted by gale force winds but spared the major force of the category four cyclone. Cyclone Tracy, which destroyed Darwin on Christmas Day 1974, killing 65 people, was also rated category four. Severe tropical cyclone Ingrid weakened slightly yesterday as it headed for Darwin, but was still rated by weather officials as a dangerous, destructive storm.

The Darwin Bureau of Meteorology yesterday morning upgraded its alert for Darwin to an official tropical cyclone warning, while downgrading Ingrid?s intensity to the second-highest category of four from highest category five. The core of Cyclone Ingrid travelled mainly along the sea passage north of the mainland, hitting remote island communities along the way. ?At this stage it is expected that only the southern edge of Ingrid will affect Darwin?, the Bureau of Meteorology said .

All police leave was cancelled and officers recalled to duty. Darwin residents were warned to secure anything, which could be picked up and turned into projectiles by fierce wind gusts of around 260 kilometres (160 miles) an hour, sometimes more. Ingrid crossed the tiny community of Croker Island, 180 kilometres (110 miles) northeast of Darwin on Sunday morning, destroying part of the school, blowing roofs off houses, felling trees and knocking down power lines. The community of 300, none of them harmed, was left without water or power supplies. With Ingrid moving west at 10 km (6 miles) an hour, weather officials warned that dangerously high tides could cause extensive flooding in coastal areas.

Michael BYRNES