Australia, New Zealand still suffer from deadly cyclone’s aftermath
Print Edition
RESCUE workers used tractors and boats to evacuate thousands of people at the top of New Zealand’s North Island yesterday as floodwaters caused by Cyclone Debbie surged in what meteorologists said was a once-in-500-year event.
The effects of the former category 4 storm, one level shy of the most powerful category 5, were also still being felt in Australia more than a week after the cyclone pounded the country’s Queensland state, flooding the town of Rockhampton.
Scores of roads were closed or blocked by landslips across New Zealand’s North Island following two days of heavy rainfall caused by the tailwind of Cyclone Debbie.
The storm killed six people in Australia, brought down power lines and shut coal mines. No deaths were reported in New Zealand, but a man was reported missing in a swollen river.
“There’s still a risk of loss of life,” Paula Bennett, New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, said in Wellington as rescue workers evacuated the town of Edgecumbe in the Bay of Plenty.
“Under no circumstances should people be looking at going back at the moment,” she said. “The message must be really clear to people right now: Get out and stay out.”
New Zealand’s mountainous terrain makes its roads susceptible to landslides and many regions are still recovering from November’s 7.8-magnitude quake.
Kaikoura, the coastal holiday town at the epicenter of that quake, was shut off from the rest of the country for the second time in six months as connecting roads were again hit by landslips.
In Australia, where the deluge was still flowing through tropical river systems, water levels peaked in the city of Rockhampton at lunchtime yesterday, flooding main streets, shops and homes.
Residents rowed boats along main roads and muddy water covered the airport’s runway. Authorities said the airport would be closed for six days and the water was not expected to recede until the weekend.
The Australian disaster zone stretched 1,000 kilometers from Queensland’s tropical resort islands and the Gold Coast tourist strip to farmlands of New South Wales state.
Australian insurers have declared the event a catastrophe, with state officials saying recovery and repairs would take months.
“The flooding has been worse than we anticipated,” said Peter Harmer, the chief executive of Australia’s largest insurer IAG. The firm was using drones to compile early assessments of the damage.
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