Cyclone Carlos wreaks havoc in Darwin

Heavy rain is expected to continue in Darwin as tropical Cyclone Carlos continues its course across the Northern Territory.

While the cyclone has died down in Darwin, the downpour of rain has not subsided making this the heaviest rainfall on record in February, Darwin resident Peter Christofides told Neos Kosmos.

So far this month, Darwin has already recorded at least 830mm of rain, beating the previous February monthly record of 814mm, in 1969.

While the cyclone has moved further south, there's been some flooding in the immediate Darwin area and a couple of houses have had trees fallen over them, Mr Christofides said.

"There's quite a few potholes, I've seen over 100 trees uprooted, quite a lot of debris on the roads, and there was some flooding in one or two areas," he said.

Cyclone Carlos, a category one tropical cyclone, has moved towards the Katharine and Batchelor areas, while schools, businesses and the airport in Darwin reopened yesterday. "I don't see how it's possible that everything has reopened because there's still so much rain," Mr Christofides said.

Mr Christofides, who is a volunteer for OzHelp Foundation; a workplace based early intervention suicide prevention and social capacity building program, also volunteers for a disaster relief group which aided 180 homeless people in taking shelter from the wild weather on Wednesday night.

Around 1000 houses are still without electricity, while massive clean up efforts have seen Darwin residents queuing up at the uncharacteristically crowded rubbish dump, Mr Christofides said.

Many Darwin residents are now faced with the inability to work in current weather conditions. "The builders I work with as part of OzHelp are frustrated because they can only work in workshops but can't work outside because of all the rain," Mr Christofides said.

The combination of more than 400 millimetres of rain on Tuesday and strong winds has seen the Greek Community of Darwin's Greek schools and church suffer roof leaks as a result of trees coming down in the storm, according to the President of the Greek Orthodox Community of Northern Australia, John Nikolakis.

"We're currently in clean up mode," Mr Nikolakis told Neos Kosmos on Thursday. "I've just done my fourth trip to the rubbish dump and there's still plenty more to clean up".

Mr Nikolakis had to evacuate his Knightcliff home, on Wednesday night, to go to his son in law's house, further inland.

"Between 1am and 3am the cyclone was at its worst; our house is in a low area, across the road from the sea, and there was a King Tide so we didn't want to take the risk," Mr Nikolakis said.

"We were very lucky though; thank God no one was hurt and there were no other damages".