WELLINGTON, 14 Feb: The New Zealand government declared a national state of emergency Tuesday after Cyclone Gabrielle battered the country\u2019s north in what officials described as the nation\u2019s most severe weather event in years.
\nA firefighter was missing and another was rescued with critical injuries after they were caught in a landslide overnight near the country\u2019s largest city, Auckland, authorities said.
\nAuckland was swamped two weeks ago by a record-breaking storm that killed four people.
\nThe national emergency declaration enables the government to support affe-cted regions and provide additional resources, the government said. It is only the third national emer-gency ever declared.
\nThe country was lashed by intense rainfall overnight that forced evacuations of 2,500 people and brought widespread flooding, road closures including the main route between Auckland and the capital Wellington, and left communities isolated and without telecommunications.
\nWeather conditions eased Tuesday as the weather system tracked southeast over ocean away from New Zealand, a nation of 5 million people.
\nBut 225,000 homes and businesses remained without power and people were continuing to be evacuated, emergency services reported.
\nThe power grid had not experienced such damage since 1988, when Cyclone Bola became one of the most destructive storms to ever hit New Zealand, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said.
\nHipkins could not yet say how the scale of the latest destruction compared to Cyclone Bola.
\n\u201cCertainly, the reports that we\u2019ve had is that it\u2019s the most extreme weather event that we\u2019ve experienced in a very long time,\u201d Hipkins told reporters in Wellington. \u201cIn the fullness of time, we\u2019ll know how it compares with Cyclone Bola.\u201d
\nHipkins said British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had phoned offering his country\u2019s support and assistance. The Australian government also said New Zealand\u2019s near-neighbor was ready to provide support where and if needed, Hipkins said.
\nThe national state of emergency includes six regions where local emergencies had already been declared. They are Auckland, as well as the regions of Northland, Tairawhiti, Bay of Plenty, Waikato and Hawke\u2019s Bay.
\nA weather station in the Hawke\u2019s Bay and Napier region recorded three times more rain overnight than usually falls for the entire month of February, MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s going to be wet, sodden devastation around there,\u201d Ferris said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the worst of the storm now. We\u2019ve just got to get through today.\u201d
\nHipkins said the military was already on the ground on the hardest-hit northern reaches of the North Island helping with evacuations and keeping essential supplies moving.
\n\u201cI want to acknowledge the situation New Zealanders have been waking up to this morning,\u201d Hipkins told reporters. \u201cA lot of families displaced. A lot of homes without power. Extensive damage done across the country.\u201d
\n\u201cIt will take us a wee while to get a handle on exactly what\u2019s happened and, in due course, helping with the clean-up when we get to that point,\u201d Hipkins added.
\nMuch of Auckland ground to a halt Monday as train services were canceled, libraries and most schools were closed, and authorities asked people to make only essential trips.
\nAir New Zealand canc-eled all domestic flights to and from Auckland through Tuesday morning, as well as many interna-tional flights. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WELLINGTON, 14 Feb: The New Zealand government declared a national state of emergency Tuesday after Cyclone Gabrielle battered the country\u2019s north in what officials described as the nation\u2019s most severe weather event in years. A firefighter was missing and another was rescued with critical injuries after they were caught in a landslide overnight near the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-210992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}