A cyclone that left a devastating wake of extensive flooding and landslides in New Zealand has claimed at least four lives and police have “grave concerns” for other residents who remain unaccounted for, the prime minister said.
yclone Gabrielle struck the country’s north on Monday and has brought more destruction to this nation of five million than any weather event in decades.
Police said at least four people had been confirmed killed by the storm, 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.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said it was unclear how many people remained unaccounted for, with several communities still isolated by floodwaters, landslides and telecommunications outages.
Police said 1,442 people had been reported uncontactable in the North Island as of yesterday afternoon.
“We expect the vast majority of these people will be accounted for,” Mr Hipkins told reporters. “However, there are several people missing for whom police do hold grave concerns.”
He said he could not put a figure on how many missing persons reports were of grave concern. Mr Hipkins said 1,111 people had been reported found by yesterday, which would cancel out some of those reported uncontactable.
Around 9,000 people have 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. The final 25 rescues of individuals and family groups were expected to be completed yesterday.
Mr Hipkins did not say how many people had yet to be retrieved, but said none were in danger.
“The feedback we’ve had is that of those seven that are still outstanding, all of the people concerned are safe,” Mr Hipkins said. “The people who were on rooftops and precarious positions have been rescued.”
Along with rescues, the government was prioritising restoring power and telecommunications as well as delivering food, water and medicine to where it was needed.
A naval ship left Auckland late yesterday 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 3,000 people on Wednesday night.
Emergency responders planned to hold a barbecue for 3,000 people on Wednesday 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,” Mr Hipkins said.
Around 160,000 properties on the North Island were without power on Wednesday, down from 225,000 on Tuesday, the government said.