120,000 properties still blacked out in storm-hit Australia

Australian utilities raced Tuesday to reconnect more than 120,000 homes and businesses still blacked out by gales and floods that bashed the east coast. Cyclone Alfred, which hovered just offshore before making landfall as a tropical low on Saturday, battered a 400-kilometre stretch of coast for five days.

The wild weather claimed one life when a 61-year-old man driving a four-wheel-drive pickup was swept off a bridge into a flooded river Friday. The wind and rain have since eased across the coastline straddling Queensland and New South Wales but swathes of the country remained without power.