A cyclone that left flooding and landslides across New Zealand’s North Island has claimed at least four lives and police hold “grave concerns” for residents who remained missing, the prime minister said late on Wednesday.
Cyclone Gabrielle struck the country’s north on Monday, bringing more destruction to the country than any weather event in decades.
Residents in Taradale, near Napier on Hawke’s Bay, begin cleaning up.Credit:Getty Images
The death toll from the cyclone is expected to rise as emergency workers continue to survey the destruction.
Police said at least four people had been confirmed dead, including a child caught in rising water on Tuesday at Eskdale on Hawke’s Bay. All four fatalities occurred near the same North Island east coast bay, two in landslides and two by drowning.
A weather station in the Hawke’s Bay region recorded three times more rain over Monday night than usually falls for the entire month of February, authorities said.
Maik Beekmans, a resident of Eskdale, told Radio NZ a woman was still missing after failing to escape rising waters at his property on Tuesday.
Cyclone Gabrielle left floodwaters across New Zealand’s North Island.Credit:Getty Images
The woman, who had been house-sitting the property with Beekmans’s best friend, sought refuge in the ceiling as the water rose.
“We don’t know anything,” Beekmans said. “The orchard is completely ruined. The house is gone. Sheds, trucks, there’s literally nothing there.”
The woman was one of 1442 people still reported as missing or uncontactable after the storm, although authorities expected most reports to have resulted from a breakdown in telecommunications.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said that, in reality, it was unclear how many people were actually missing, with several communities still isolated by floodwaters, landslides and telecommunications outages.
Around 9000 people had been forced from their homes since Monday. More than 300 people were rescued on Tuesday from the Hawke’s Bay area, including 60 stranded on a single roof, an official said.
Along with rescues, the government was prioritising restoring power and telecommunications as well as delivering food, water and medicine to where it was needed, Hipkins said.
A naval ship left Auckland late on Wednesday with drinking water for Hawke’s Bay communities and another ship would follow with vital supplies on Thursday.
A helicopter would drop bottled water for 3000 people on Wednesday night and emergency responders planned to hold a barbecue to feed 3000 people that night in the Hawke’s Bay town of Wairoa.
“They’ll keep cooking into the night until either they run out of people to feed or they run out of food,” Hipkins said.
Water treatment equipment would also be delivered to Wairoa on Thursday, he said.
Around 160,000 properties on the North Island were without power on Wednesday, down from 225,000 on Tuesday, the government said.
Emergency workers had an additional scare on Wednesday night when a magnitude 6.3 earthquake –originally rated a 6.0 – struck near Wellington. There were no reports of major damage.
AAP, AP, Reuters
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