New Zealand flooding: three dead and one missing as Auckland hit ...

Torrential rain in Auckland left three people dead and another missing, police said on Saturday, after widespread flooding hit New Zealand’s largest city.

Two were found dead in Wairau Valley on Auckland’s North Shore – one in a culvert and a second in a flooded car park – and a third body was found later after a landslide hit a house in the city centre.

Another man is missing after being swept in a community south of Auckland.

The new prime minister, Chris Hipkins, visited the devastated area on Saturday with his emergency management minister, Kieran McAnulty. Hipkins promised that government support would arrive in the coming days, and warned of further bad weather.

He urged Aucklanders to avoid unnecessary travel, to stay out of the water and check in on loved ones. “For now the focus is supporting Aucklanders through this,” he said.

The city has broken all its rainfall records – 249mm compared with a previous record of 161mm in 24 hours – making this its wettest day and month on record. The nation’s weather forecaster said while heavy rain had eased, another period of downpours was possible on Sunday.

McAnulty said water tankers are being sent to the area, he said, and residents were urged to cut their water use in order to reduce wastewater levels. Residents in affected areas were also urged to buy only the food they need while damage to supermarkets and food supply services were assessed.

A state of emergency remains in place in the city of around 1.6 million people on New Zealand’s north island as the rains eased after causing flooding in the north, northwest and west. Asked to respond to claims the declaration was announced too late on Friday night, Hipkins said we would not get into “second-guessing” decisions on the issue.

Auckland Emergency Management – part of the city’s council, said daylight had revealed the first “true understanding” of the impact of the storm, caused by warm air descending from the tropics which sparked heavy rain and thunderstorms.

“Auckland was clobbered on Friday – Auckland’s wettest day on record – and today we start the clean-up,” the agency’s duty controller, Andrew Clark, said in a statement, urging caution for residents returning home to survey flood damage.

“We won’t start to get a good idea of numbers affected until later today and, even then, this will take time, with information still coming in and many assessments to complete,” he said.

Simon Bridges, chief executive of Auckland’s Chamber of Commerce has said he expects the clean-up bill to run into the tens of millions, according to domestic media, and has called a meeting for Sunday to discuss how to help support businesses.

Auckland’s mayor, Wayne Brown, warned late on Friday that the clean-up operation would be a “major, major job”.

The flash flooding turned many of Auckland’s roads into rivers on Friday, and the wild weather closed the city’s airport, the country’s largest, with ankle-deep water in some terminals.

Air New Zealand said its domestic flights in and out of Auckland resumed from noon on Saturday, and advised it was assessing whether international flights would also restart when the international terminal opens at 5pm local time..

The airline had 12 international flights due into Auckland diverted overnight, it said earlier on Saturday.

Hipkins, who was sworn in on Wednesday after Jacinda Ardern’s resignation, wrote on Twitter that government agencies were “working flat out” to help.

Hipkins said the national crisis management centre, housed under the parliament building in the capital, Wellington, was helping to coordinate the emergency response.

The persistent downpour saw the cancellation of Elton John’s concert on Friday at Auckland’s Mount Smart stadium amid concerns for crowd safety.

Emergency services have been swamped by calls for help as civil defence officials warned residents to stay home.

Auckland residents have been urged to contact emergency services only if facing “life-threatening” danger.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

• New Zealand

• Flooding
• Extreme weather
• Chris Hipkins
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