New Zealand declared a National State of Emergency on Tuesday, for only the third time in its history.
Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty signed the declaration at 8:43 am local time to aid response to Cyclone Gabrielle. High gusts and severe flooding has been caused by the cyclone.
A large area of the North Island is being adversely affected by this extraordinary weather phenomena, McAnulty said.
All of Northland, Tairwhiti, Bay of Plenty, Waikato, and Hawke’s Bay as well as the main metropolis of Auckland are under a state of emergency.
The local leadership, CDEM groups, and emergency responders in all affected areas have been doing a wonderful job. However, but the broad damage wrought by this hurricane needs a national declaration to support them said McAnulty.
It was the “most major meteorological event New Zealand has experienced in this century,” as prime minister Chris Hipkins put it.
This level of destruction and intensity is unprecedented in our lifetimes. We are still piecing together a picture of the cyclone’s effects as the storm develops. We do, however, know that the impact is large and pervasive, he said.
Estimate suggests the storm has caused displacement of over 2,500 people due to flooding, landslides, and the closure of roads.
There were a total of 225,000 power outages on North Island.
MetService, the national weather service, predicted that severe weather will ease over the country before Wednesday morning’s daybreak when Cyclone Gabrielle left the country. MetService has forecasted that parts of central New Zealand would experience persistent rainfall through Thursday.
In addition, it foretold that winds might reach 74 mph in a large swath of the country, from the Coromandel peninsula in the north to the city of Wellington on the South Island.
MetService said that the North Island was still feeling the effects of huge waves, storm surges, and coastal flooding.
Hipkins claims that the recent severe weather will have far-reaching consequences for land use in the future.
The New Zealand government is currently dealing with the consequences of a long line of bad decisions “This is what he had to say, he explained.
