The prime minister of New Zealand anticipates additional fatalities from a violent cyclone that has already killed eight people and isolated hundreds of communities.
More than 4,500 people have not been reached since Cyclone Gabrielle struck the North Island on Monday, causing major flooding and landslides.
Many cities and settlements also lack electricity and potable water.
Only the third state of emergency in New Zealand’s history has been proclaimed.
“This is without a doubt the largest natural disaster we’ve seen possibly in a century,” said Prime Minister Chris Hipkins.
Mr. Hipkins stated that many of the tens of thousands of uncontactable people will likely be discovered alive and well despite the destruction of hundreds of mobile phone towers by the storm. However, he cautioned that people should “prepare for more deaths.”
An estimated 10,000 individuals are also displaced.
A two-year-old girl was verified dead, and her family witnessed her being swept away by floodwaters.
Ella Louise Collins, her husband, and their two children were trapped in their Hawke’s Bay home.
“The water in our home was approximately 10 centimeters (four inches) from the ceiling and rose extremely rapidly and violently,” she wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday, according to the AFP news agency.
They attempted to reach the roof of a neighbor for protection. But were prevented by what Ms. Collins described as “a sudden torrent of water that almost drowned us.
Her daughter Ivy was swept away by the waves and drowned.
Earlier this week, rugby league star Issac Luke’s father George was slain by a landslide on North Island.
Rachel Greene eulogized her mother Marie, whose corpse was discovered in the roof cavity of her cottage by the son of her landlord after the cyclone.
After numerous phone calls to Marie went unanswered, it took Rachel four days to discover what had transpired.
Rachel told New Zealand news outlet Stuff.co.nz, “I want everyone to know what a wonderful person she was and how much she was adored.”
It is believed that at least one-third of New Zealand’s population of five million was affected by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Hawke’s Bay, Coromandel, and Northland are among the worst-affected coastal towns on the extreme northern and eastern coasts of the North Island.
Authorities have been especially concerned about the situation in Hawke’s Bay, a famous tourist destination with remote towns.
On Friday, approximately 62,000 homes across the country remained without power.
Tuesday, New Zealand declared a national state of emergency, allowing the country to streamline its reaction to the disaster.
The nation has only proclaimed a national state of emergency twice in the past. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.
The climate minister of New Zealand has attributed the magnitude of the catastrophe to climate change.
Cyclone Gabrielle hit the North Island of New Zealand two weeks after record rains and flooding. Four individuals perished in these disasters.
