Cyclone Gabrielle hits New Zealand: Dead body on beach as Wairoa, Tairawhiti, Hawke’s Bay struggle

A national state of emergency has been declared in New Zealand after widespread damage from Cyclone Gabrielle, the country’s worst storm in generations.

Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty made the statement at 8:43am Tuesday as New Zealanders woke up to flooding, power outages, road closures and telephone network outages from the massive storm.

Thousands of people have been evacuated across the country, at least 225,000 lost power and there are fears for the lives of several New Zealanders.

And still, the full extent of Cyclone Gabrielle’s wrath remains unclear, with some isolated communities, including Wairoa and villages in Tairawhiti, unable to be reached or communicated with by land, sea or air.

“We don’t have a full understanding of the impact there. And that makes us anxious,” McAnulty said.

What is known is that much of Hawke’s Bay is under water, with police boat and helicopter rescues taking place Tuesday weather permitting.

‘I’ve been in the region for over 20 years and this is by far the biggest (storm)… people haven’t seen a storm like this. It’s a very, very significant event,’ Hawke’s Bay civil defense spokesman Ian Maxwell told Radio NZ.

It is only the third time a national statement has been issued, following the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The storm is New Zealand’s worst since 1988, and the damage may exceed the devastation of Cyclone Bola in that year.

“This is the most extreme weather event we have experienced in a long time,” Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said.

‘Our focus right now is on the immediate response. It’s about making sure people have a roof over their head. Let them have a meal. May their families be well cared for.

The cyclone, which formed in the Coral Sea last week, moved steadily towards New Zealand and passed the northern edge of the North Island between Sunday and Tuesday.

At 7pm local time, it was east of the New Zealand mainland, but its enormous size continued to bring destructive winds across the entire North Island.

MetService spokeswoman Lisa Murray told Radio NZ that heavy rain and hurricane-force winds meant “there are a lot of places in trouble”.

“It’s really widespread throughout the North Island.”

On Tuesday night, a person was found dead on Bay View beach, north of Napier, in one of the hardest-hit areas.

Death has not yet connected with the storm.

There are also serious fears for a volunteer firefighter who was inside a house when it collapsed in Muriwai, west of Auckland, on Tuesday morning.

The navy is also searching for two ships in waters north of Auckland.

News outlet Stuff reported that people were trapped in cars along the flooded State Highway 5 between Napier and Taupo, where communications are spotty.

About a dozen temporary workers from Tonga were trapped on top of buildings all day when floodwaters rose near Hastings.

Landslides, falling trees and flooding have deeply affected infrastructure, with power transmission agency Transpower saying it was facing a “grid emergency” with some outages lasting “days or weeks”.

Strong winds have also forced the cancellation of large-scale flights, displacing tens of thousands.

The transport authority, Waka Kotahi, reports more than 40 road closures, including State Highway 1 in several locations and key arterial roads in the Coromandel and East Coast.

Fire and Emergency NZ reported 1,842 storm-related emergency calls, but others unable to get through, with hundreds of mobile phone towers downed.

In addition to the physical damage to property and livelihood, Hipkins said he expected a serious mental health cost from the latest New Zealand disaster.

“If you think about the last decade and a half or so, we’ve had everything from earthquakes, natural disasters, volcanic eruptions, weather events. It’s a lot,’ he said.

We have taken care of everything.

The storm led the parties to cancel the first week of parliament of the year, allowing the government to focus on the storm and MPs to be in their communities.

And the wild weather is far from over, with the South Island now also in the firing line.

In flood-stricken Napier, residents were ordered to ‘immediately evacuate’ to higher ground before flooding worsened after its second-wettest February day on record.

The alert came too late for many residents, as surf lifeguards spent the day paddling through flooded streets to check on stranded locals.

Residents in central Whangārei were also forced to flee as the risk of landslides threatened their homes after the city’s wettest February day on record.

Helicopter and boat crews were deployed to rescue residents stranded on rooftops in Hawke’s Bay, trapped by rising floodwaters.

In Muriwai, a coastal town west of Auckland, a volunteer firefighter and a local vet are missing, while another is in critical condition after a house collapsed in a landslide.

It is Auckland’s second flood emergency in weeks, with the city recording 55 per cent of its annual average rainfall over 45 days.