Cyclone Debbie: New Zealand towns evacuated after 'once in 500-year' flooding

Concrete levee breaks on North Island leading to state of emergency as 2,000 people rescued with jet boats and tractors

Nick Perry
Thursday 06 April 2017 09:16 BST
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Jet boats drive through the flooded streets of the North Island town of Edgecumbe in New Zealand
Jet boats drive through the flooded streets of the North Island town of Edgecumbe in New Zealand

Jet boats and tractors have been used to help rescue around 2,000 people in a New Zealand town after a river burst through a concrete levee, flooding hundreds of homes and businesses.

Authorities declared a state of emergency after the levee failed in the town of Edgecumbe on the North Island.

New Zealand has been drenched in recent days by the remnants of Cyclone Debbie, which flooded parts of Australia's east coast last week.

Tony Bonne, mayor of Whakatane District Council, said the water was more than a metre deep in some homes and one nearby river had reached an all-time record height.

He said some leaking had occurred around the levee on the Rangitaiki River before it failed.

Crews had worked to reinforce the structure and thought they had it secured when “she just let go”.

“Some people are in shock, of course, but many are accepting that this is something that's a part of nature which they have no control over,” Mr Bonne said.

Mr Bonne told Radio New Zealand the flood was a “once in 500-year” event. “There is danger, with the huge volumes of water coming down the river, we have grave concerns for the town of Edgecumbe,” he said. “This has all happened really quickly ... there is a wall of water going through Edgecumbe at the moment.”

Andy Best, a meteorologist with MetService, said a nearby weather monitoring station had recorded 191mm (7.5ins) of rain over the last couple of days, an amount that would typically fall over two months.

He said the worst of the weather system had passed and the forecast was for improved weather in the coming days.

The rains also affected the town of Kaikoura, where access roads were closed due to mudslides.

Access to the town has been reduced since a powerful earthquake last November brought down hillsides and closed the main northbound route.

Mr Bonne said questions would come about how the water flow was managed from hydroelectric dams upstream on the Rangitaiki River before the levee failed.

Local government minister Anne Tolley said she understood that the operators of the dams had released some water over the past few days in anticipation of the high rainfall, but she did not have the technical expertise to know if they had done enough.

She said authorities had set up two welfare centres where people from Edgecumbe can stay but did not know when they would be able to return to their homes.

“The message is, it's not safe, your life could be at risk, don't go home,” she said. “And that's really hard.”

Associated Press

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