The passage of Tropical Cyclone Gabrielle through New Zealand’s North Island has left at least four dead and more than 10,500 people homeless, the country’s authorities reported on Wednesday.
Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty announced the deaths of two people in Hawke’s Bay, on the east coast of the North Island and one of the areas hardest hit by the tropical cyclone.
McAnulty also confirmed the discovery of a body, reportedly that of a firefighter who disappeared Monday after a house collapsed in western Auckland, the country’s largest city, following a landslide.
“Frankly, what touched me the most was the arrested volunteer firefighter. It’s an absolute tragedy,” the minister said at a press conference in the capital, Wellington.
Authorities later indicated that a child’s body had been found in a town on the remote east coast.
New Zealand says Cyclone Gabrielle has wreaked havoc “unseen in a generation”, forcing it to declare a national emergency for the third time in the country’s history. pic.twitter.com/YuXnzu37jW
– DW News (@dwnews) February 14, 2023
New Zealand has declared a state of emergency for the third time in its history after Cyclone Gabrielle flooded parts of the country.
The cyclone cut power to 225,000 residents, stranded people on rooftops and swept at least one sailor into the sea. https://t.co/fLzWhoOlL7Q pic.twitter.com/581xvHSHCk
– The New York Times (@nytimes) February 15, 2023
McAnulty also indicated that about 10,500 people should be evacuated from their homes, including 9,000 residents of Hawke’s Bay.
Emergency services, with the help of about 250 soldiers, rescued hundreds of people, including about 300 who were evacuated by plane after taking shelter 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 road connecting the capital Wellington to Auckland, the country’s largest city, has been closed.
The tropical cyclone caused wind gusts of up to 140 kilometers per hour, a precipitation level of about 20 centimeters in 24 hours and waves of eleven meters high.
Gabrielle, who suddenly reversed course over the weekend away from Australia’s remote Norfolk archipelago, continues to move south away from New Zealand’s coast, though the country is not yet “out of the woods,” McAnulty stressed .
This was only the third time New Zealand has declared a state of emergency, following the 2019 Christchurch attacks and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic.
Source: DN
