Cyclone Gabrielle hit the North Island’s uppermost region on Feb. 12 and tracked down the east coast, inflicting widespread devastation. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has called Gabrielle Recent Zealand’s biggest natural disaster this century.
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The death toll from Cyclone Gabrielle in Recent Zealand climbed to 11 on Sunday as hundreds of individuals remained missing per week after the storm struck the country’s North Island.
The cyclone hit the North Island’s uppermost region on Feb. 12 and tracked down the east coast, inflicting widespread devastation. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has called Gabrielle Recent Zealand’s biggest natural disaster this century.
On Sunday, police said two more people had died within the hard-hit Hawke’s Bay area in circumstances related to the cyclone, raising the death toll to 11.
Some 5,608 people remained uncontactable across the country, while 1,196 had registered they were protected, police said.
Authorities have previously said they’ve grave fears for a small number, around 10, of those still missing.
Recovery efforts continued, with teams from Auckland Council carrying out rapid constructing assessments on damaged homes within the coastal areas of Muriwai and Piha, about 60 km (40 miles) west of the nation’s largest city Auckland.
Emergency authorities and military on Saturday dropped critical supplies via helicopter to communities stranded for the reason that cyclone, which washed away farms, bridges and livestock and inundated homes.
Around 62,000 households were without power nationwide on Saturday. Of those, almost 40,000 were in Hawke’s Bay, out of a population of about 170,000.
Prime Minister Hipkins has said the crisis response is “still underway” and that folks across the North Island are “working across the clock.”
Police have sent an additional 100 officers to Hawke’s Bay and nearby Tairawhiti, including to isolated areas, and the Recent Zealand Herald reported roadblocks around a rural Hawke’s Bay village to discourage looters.
“Targeting people in a crisis is abhorrent and we’re not tolerating it,” police Superintendent Jeanette Park said.