Auckland at a standstill as storm leaves thousands in North Island without power – as it happened (2024)

Before we close down our live blog, here is a quick summary of today’s developments.

You can also read our full report by our New Zealand correspondent, Tess McClure.

• Gabrielle is currently sitting 250km (155 miles) north-west of New Zealand’s coast and is forecast to move close to the east coast over the next 24 hours.

• Thousands of homes across the country are currently without power. Electricity is out for 46,000 homes, cell service is patchy in some areas and trees have come down and roofs lifted off. The emergency management minister, Kieran McAnulty, said it would be a “critical day” due to the “highly dangerous” combination of high winds and heavy rain.

• Almost all of the top half of the North Island has been covered by localised states of emergency including in Auckland – New Zealand’s largest city of 1.7 million people – as well as in Northland, Coromandel, Ōpōtiki, Whakatāne, Tairāwhiti and Hauraki.

• Communities in coastal regions evacuated on Monday. Mandatory evacuations were ordered along the entire eastern Bay of Plenty coastline – an area covering about 400 homes – as well as for 100 homes in the Whakatāne district in the Bay of Plenty region.

• There were concerns that the high tide – due to arrive around midnight on Monday – would coincide with the worst of the storm.

• National forecaster MetService said it had broken its record for “red” weather warnings issued around the country, and wind gusts of 150-160km/h were recorded.

• New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins warned the worst is yet to come as Cyclone Gabrielle sparks evacuations, rising flood waters and power outages across the North Island. “Things are likely to get worse before they get better,” Hipkins said. “Extreme weather event has come on the back of extreme weather event.”

• Hipkins added that the “threshold for a national emergency has not yet been met” as of 4pm on Monday but officials were “getting an update every four hours” and reassessing.

• The New Zealand government announced a $11.5m community support package to help tens of thousands of people affected by the recent floods as well as to prepare for the response to Cyclone Gabrielle.

• Air New Zealand cancelled 509 flights with 10,000 international customers affected by the disruptions. Normal services are expected to resume on Tuesday.

• The cyclone is the second significant weather event to hit Auckland and the upper North Island in just a few weeks. Last month Auckland and surrounding areas were hit by record rainfall that sparked floods and killed four people.

A landslide crashed into a home in a coastal Coromandel Peninsula town, forcing its occupants to evacuate on Monday afternoon.

Fire and emergency crews were alerted to the large slip in Hahei at 4.18pm on Monday, local news outlet Stuff reported.

“From the information we can see, everyone is out of the house and a small number of people in the area are being evacuated,” a spokesperson said. “That’s as much detail as we can provide.”

A “record storm surge” has been recorded in Whitianga, in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island.

The Whitianga monitoring station recorded a storm surge of 0.7 metres and rising, according to the Niwa forecast service.

The surge measures the rise in water level above the normal tidal level.

Rain engulfs North Island

Radar images released by MetService show rain engulfing New Zealand’s North Island on Monday afternoon.

Eight North Island regions have now declared states of emergency.

Here are some of the latest images to come through our news wires this afternoon.

Here

Hauraki and Ōpōtiki have also announced local states of emergency – that’s most of the upper North Island now covered.

At his 4pm press conference, prime minister Chris Hipkins said the “threshold for a national emergency has not yet been met” but officials were “getting an update every four hours” and reassessing.

Waikato District Council has declared a local state of emergency, saying a number of areas around the Waikato River were now at high risk of flooding.

At least five other North Island regions – Auckland, Whakatāne, Northland, Coromandel and Tairāwhiti – have declared local states of emergency, which allow councils special powers, including to conduct emergency evacuations.

“With the worst of the weather due to hit overnight, we want to ensure that we are ready to respond taking whatever action necessary to keep our people safe,” said the Waikato District Council mayor, Jacqui Church. She also told residents to self-evacuate if their area was flooding.

If there is surface flooding in your area and you see rising water, do not wait for official warnings. Head for higher ground and stay away from flood water.

Storm reflects global importance of tackling climate crisis, Hipkins says

The prime minister says that he’ll likely discuss recent weather emergencies in upcoming meetings with other world leaders – and that the storms illustrate the “global importance” of tackling climate change.

I think we’re certainly bound to be asked about the weather in my discussions with other leaders... I’ll be sharing New Zealand’s experience and of course, it is an illustration of the global importance of tackling the challenge of climate change. Other countries are experiencing more extreme weather events as well – the globe is increasingly seeing the effects of climate change.

Hipkins has spent some time discussing the government’s $11.5m in extra funding for cyclone relief. “It’s clear the demand for support is exceeding the funding available,” he said.

“Extreme weather event has come on the back of extreme weather event.

“Things are likely to get worse before they get better.”

The prime minister, Chris Hipkins, is speaking to media now from Auckland. He says 25,000 people have so far been assisted with food, clothing, shelter, bedding and accommodation.

“People have lost their homes and their vehicles, families are facing additional challenges getting children back to school. And many families will be facing anxiety and distress,” he said.

The New Zealand government has just announced a $11.5m community support package to help tens of thousands of people affected by the recent floods as well as to prepare for the response to Cyclone Gabrielle.

The minister for social development and employment, Carmel Sepuloni, said that the demand for support is exceeding funding available for community organisations and groups.

Under the proposed support package, $4m will be given to providers to ensure they can “meet increased demand and support [the] wellbeing of their staff and volunteers” as well as $1m to replenish stocks at food banks currently experiencing high demand, according to a ministry statement shared with the Guardian.

Another $2m of grants will be provided for community groups to support flood response and a $4m expansion of the scope of community connectors to support Auckland and impacted regions’ flood response efforts.

A $500,000 ring fenced funding will also be included to respond to the needs of disabled people. Sepuloni said:

This support package will provide immediate relief for individuals and families, bespoke support for disabled people like transport assistance, as well as support for the voluntary sector who continue to be at the heart of their communities and our response.”

Sepuloni added that although “we’re not out of the woods yet” and the full extent of the damage was still unfolding, he said authorities needed to act swiftly to ensure people can continue to access support.

“Our focus remains on the most affected communities including Māori, Pacific, disabled, youth and our ethnic communities, and the organisations and groups that work to support them,” he added.

A mandatory evacuation order is currently in place for about 100 homes in the Whakatāne district in the Bay of Plenty region, which just declared a local state of emergency at 3pm on Monday.

Acting mayor Lesley Immink said the declaration provides additional emergency management powers to the district controller and enables the civil defence response to call on support from outside the district if required.

Emergency management powers allows our response team to do things like close off areas, evacuate people and get the resources needed to respond to this event.

Auckland airport has also released an update, advising that there have been “significant flight cancellations” today.

A total of 85 out of 104 scheduled international flights have been cancelled together with all 301 scheduled domestic flights, the airport said.

Cyclone Gabrielle is approaching New Zealand’s North Island as more challenging conditions are set to come.

Our video team has gathered some of the footage from the past few hours.