Residents are stacking sandbags to protect low-lying properties ahead of a tropical cyclone that is forecast to become the first in 51 years to hit the Australian east coast near Brisbane, the nation’s third-most populous city.

Alfred – which was downgraded from a cyclone before it made landfall – has turned beaches into cliffs. Erosion is so extreme that long, steep slopes up to six-metres high have formed. At least one person was killed and four others remain missing,