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 in the storm, and there were “grave concerns” for others, the government said, after reports from residents in the Hawke’s Bay region of people being swept away by flood waters.
With the extent of damage still unfolding, New Zealand requested Australia’s help for disaster response on Thursday morning. “I can confirm we have received a formal request from New Zealand less than an hour ago,” Elizabeth Peak from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told the Senate.
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,” she said.
Speaking from storm-hit Gisborne on Thursday, the prime minister, Chris Hipkins, said the level of damage was “very traumatic” and communities were “under enormous pressure”. “My heart goes out to those families or those people who have been in extraordinary difficult set of circumstances – I can only imagine how I would feel if I was in the set of circumstances with my own family,” he said.
“What we’ve also seen in the last 24 to 48 hours is the very best of New Zealand: we’ve seen those communities coming together wrapping support around each other, looking after each other.”
Hipkins said central government would “put everything into getting people through this” and was accepting offers of international help.
The prime minister said New Zealand would be forced to re-evaluate and remake its infrastructure in response to extreme weather events. “There’s 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’ve ever seen before.”
As the emergency response continued, fresh storms were arriving, with severe thunderstorm alerts issued on Thursday morning for the worst-hit areas.
National forecaster MetService issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Thursday afternoon for areas including the Bay of Plenty, Gisborne and the Hawke’s Bay region – three of the areas that have experienced some of the highest levels of flooding, damage and loss of life.
MetService said there were “very unstable conditions” including “heavy rain and hail”.
“Rainfall of this intensity can cause surface and/or flash flooding, especially about low-lying areas,” they said.
Fresh evacuation orders were issued on Thursday morning for residents of central Hawke’s Bay, with those around Drumpeel Road told to “leave immediately”.
Large parts of the Hawke’s Bay region were without power, and were expected to remain so for weeks, with thousands of people displaced.
As flood waters recede, they are revealing huge destruction: homes partly immersed in silt and mud, or shifted off their foundations. “It’s just unbelievable the devastation,” Eastern police district commander Supt Jeanette Park said on Thursday morning. “When you see it, it’s hard to comprehend.”
‘Total devastation’: New Zealand reels from Cyclone Gabrielle
Hawke’s Bay civil defence officials said they were working through 3,000 reports of people who remained uncontactable – but said some of those people could have been reported twice. Police said on Wednesday night more than 1,400 people were “uncontactable” on a missing-person database.
On Thursday morning, Urban Search and Rescue said they were still rescuing people from their homes in Hawke’s 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.
“We’re 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,” he said.
The New Zealand prime minister, Chris Hipkins, was expected to travel to Gisborne on Thursday to meet residents and first responders on the ground.