{"id":29637,"date":"2023-02-16T03:04:55","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T03:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=29637"},"modified":"2026-07-05T17:18:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T17:18:32","slug":"cyclone-gabrielle-new-zealand-storm-killed-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/02\/16\/cyclone-gabrielle-new-zealand-storm-killed-five\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyclone Gabrielle: New Zealand storm killed five"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At least five people have died and evacuations are continuing as fresh storm warnings are announced in regions of New Zealand already devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five people have now been confirmed dead\u00a0in the storm, and there were \u201cgrave concerns\u201d for others, the government said, after reports from residents in the Hawke\u2019s Bay region of people being swept away by flood waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the extent of damage still unfolding, New Zealand requested Australia\u2019s help for disaster response on Thursday morning. \u201cI can confirm we have received a formal request from New Zealand less than an hour ago,\u201d Elizabeth Peak from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told the Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We set up yesterday [Wednesday] a national management coordination function to be able to respond very quickly when the request came through, and, and we will certainly do that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking from storm-hit Gisborne on Thursday, the prime minister, Chris Hipkins, said the level of damage was \u201cvery traumatic\u201d and communities were \u201cunder enormous pressure\u201d. \u201cMy heart goes out to those families or those people who have been in extraordinary difficult set of circumstances \u2013 I can only imagine how I would feel if I was in the set of circumstances with my own family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve also seen in the last 24 to 48 hours is the very best of New Zealand: we\u2019ve seen those communities coming together wrapping support around each other, looking after each other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hipkins said central government would \u201cput everything into getting people through this\u201d and was accepting offers of international help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The prime minister said New Zealand would be forced to re-evaluate and remake its infrastructure in response to extreme weather events. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that as a country we need to look at the resilience of our infrastructure, and we need to do that with a much greater sense of urgency than we\u2019ve ever seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the emergency response continued, fresh storms were arriving, with severe thunderstorm alerts issued on Thursday morning for the worst-hit areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

National forecaster MetService issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Thursday afternoon for areas including the Bay of Plenty, Gisborne and the Hawke\u2019s Bay region \u2013 three of the areas that have experienced some of the highest levels of flooding, damage and loss of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MetService said there were \u201cvery unstable conditions\u201d including \u201cheavy rain and hail\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRainfall of this intensity can cause surface and\/or flash flooding, especially about low-lying areas,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
A damaged railway line in Awatoto, near Napier, Hawke\u2019s Bay. Photograph: Kerry Marshall\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fresh evacuation orders were issued on Thursday morning for residents of central Hawke\u2019s Bay, with those around Drumpeel Road told to \u201cleave immediately\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large parts of the Hawke\u2019s Bay region were without power, and were expected to remain so for weeks, with thousands of people displaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As flood waters recede, they are revealing huge destruction: homes partly immersed in silt and mud, or shifted off their foundations. \u201cIt\u2019s just unbelievable the devastation,\u201d Eastern police district commander Supt Jeanette Park said on Thursday morning. \u201cWhen you see it, it\u2019s hard to comprehend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 ‘Total devastation’: New Zealand reels from Cyclone Gabrielle<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hawke\u2019s Bay civil defence officials said they were working through 3,000 reports of people who remained uncontactable \u2013 but said some of those people could have been reported twice. Police said on Wednesday night more than 1,400 people were \u201cuncontactable\u201d on a missing-person database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday morning, Urban Search and Rescue said they were still rescuing people from their homes in Hawke\u2019s Bay. In a radio interview, Napier-based Urban Search and Rescue specialist Ken Cooper said people had been climbing down from roofs to shelter in the upper parts of their properties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re finding people have moved to the roof voids of their properties, so we are still, at this moment, we are still rescuing people from their properties and there are a large number of people unaccounted for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New Zealand prime minister, Chris Hipkins, was expected to travel to Gisborne on Thursday to meet residents and first responders on the ground.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least five people have died and evacuations are continuing as fresh storm warnings are announced in regions of New Zealand already devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle. Five people have now been confirmed dead\u00a0in the storm, and there were \u201cgrave concerns\u201d for others, the government said, after reports from residents in the Hawke\u2019s Bay region of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":29639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3347,10255,9533,6083,8116,5241,5846,9203,6738,5455,746,5787,11638,2264,10598,8995,10954,11493,9515,6831,5187,421,3174,8174,10716,7887,8501,7972,10329,6584,9085,3954,594],"class_list":["post-29637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-australia","tag-cyclone","tag-cyclone-gabrielle","tag-dead","tag-destruction","tag-died","tag-displaced","tag-evacuation","tag-families","tag-family","tag-feel","tag-flood","tag-forced","tag-government","tag-homes","tag-infrastructure","tag-international","tag-interview","tag-killed","tag-missing","tag-new-zealand","tag-police","tag-prime-minister","tag-railway","tag-rain","tag-rainfall","tag-senate","tag-storm","tag-trade","tag-travel","tag-weather","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50863,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29637\/revisions\/50863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}