The passage of tropical cyclone Gabrielle through the North Island of New Zealand left at least three dead and more than 10,500 homeless, the country’s authorities said Wednesday.
Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty announced the Death of two people in Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of the North Island and one of the areas most affected by the tropical cyclone.
McAnulty also confirmed the discovery of a body, believed to be that of a firefighter who went missing after a house collapsed in west Auckland, the country’s largest city, on Monday following a landslide.
“What affected me the most, to be honest, was the arrested volunteer firefighter. It is an absolute tragedy”, said the minister, at a press conference, in the capital, Wellington.
McAnulty further stated that around 10,500 people had to be evacuated from their homesincluding nine thousand Hawke’s Bay residents.
Emergency services, with the help of some 250 soldiers, rescued hundreds of people, including some 300 who were evacuated by air after taking refuge on rooftops to escape the flooding.
Gabrielle left a trail of destruction in the infrastructure of the North Island, the most populous in the country, depriving 225,000 people of electricity, in addition to causing damage to roads and telecommunications.
The main highway linking the capital Wellington with Auckland, the country’s largest city, is closed.
The tropical cyclone caused wind gusts of up to 140 kilometers per hour, a level of precipitation of about 20 centimeters in 24 hours and waves of eleven meters.
Gabrielle, which suddenly changed course over the weekend away from Australia’s remote Norfolk archipelago, is still moving south away from the New Zealand coast, although the country is not “out of the woods” yet, McAnulty stressed.
This was only the third time New Zealand had declared a state of emergency, following the Christchurch attacks in 2019 and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Source: Observadora
