Already affected by a torrent of fresh water from the floods that devastated Queensland earlier this year, the Great Barrier Reef has also taken a pounding from the recent Cyclone Yasi.

A preliminary assessment of the reef from the Marine Park Authority found that around 300 kilometres of the 2,400 km reef have been affected by the cyclone, which made landfall at the beginning of February.

Paul Marshall, the assessment co-ordinator, says the good news is that damage has been patchy.

“Branching corals have suffered the most, with the remnants being strewn across the seabed floor, while large plate corals have been snapped off and dumped into deeper water,” he said in a 7 March statement. “Some corals that are hundreds of years old have been tipped on their sides.”

The Wall Street Journal has a more in depth look at the destruction today, with Marshall noting that in some areas “there was hardly a coral to be found left alive” after Yasi hit.

For more on the threat from the Queensland floods, see: Corals threatened by huge volume of polluted fresh water pulsing into World Heritage Site.

Image: Yasi approaching Australia / NASA