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New Zealand has been placed under a national state of emergency due to widespread damage from Cyclone Gabrielle.
Thousands of kiwis on the North Island woke up without power, houses flooded, road closures and phone cuts after a massive storm caused widespread chaos.
In Muriwai, a coastal town west of Auckland, one volunteer firefighter is feared dead and another is in critical condition after a house collapsed in a landslide.
Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty declared a national emergency shortly before 9am local time on Tuesday.
It is only the third time in history that New Zealand has declared a national emergency.
“This is an unprecedented weather event that is having a huge impact on much of the North Island,” McAnulty said.
Showing the scale of the damage, it is the third time a national statement has been issued, following the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the night, Gabrielle continued her march south before stopping near Great Barrier Island, north of the Coromandel Peninsula.
By 8am, it had moved east to the Bay of Plenty, north of Tauranga, but its sheer size is bringing destructive winds across the North Island.
Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Kiwis are without power due to the storm’s destructive winds, including the entire city of Napier, which lost power Tuesday morning.
Regional states of emergency have been declared in at least 10 North Island regions, including Auckland, Northland, Thames-Coromandel, and at 4:30am Tuesday, Napier and Hastings.
MetService executive Lisa Murray said some areas of the Coromandel, the region closest to the eye of the storm, have received 300mm of rain during the storm to date.
“It’s really widespread in the North Island,” he told Radio NZ.
Asked which area she is most concerned about, Ms Murray replied: “There are so many areas.”
There are many places in trouble.
On the east coast, the Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay regions have been hit by similar tolls, with rivers bursting their banks forcing evacuations.
‘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.
In Muriwai, serious fears are being raised for the safety of the volunteer firefighter who went missing after the house collapsed.
Fire and Emergency NZ chief executive Kerry Gregory said the property was too unsafe to search.
‘Our thoughts are with our firefighters and their loved ones. We are also providing support to the other members of his brigade,” he told TVNZ.
The Waka Kotahi transport authority reports 50 road closures, including State Highway 1 in several locations and key arterial roads in Coromandel and the East Coast.
Cyclone Gabrielle will continue to wreak havoc on the North Island on Tuesday.
Red wind warnings remain in effect for Auckland, Northland, Coromandel and Taranaki, with gusts of up to 140km/h forecast.
Red rain warnings have been extended across Northland, Coromandel and Hawke’s Bay.
Most of the North Island, including Wellington and Napier, are under orange wind warnings, suggesting gusts of up to 120km/h, as is the northern region of the South Island.