National state of emergency invoked for only the third time in country’s history as storm traps people on roofs and destroys homes
The climate change minister, James Shaw, said of the cyclone’s devastating effects: “This is climate change”., he decried “the lost decades that we spent bickering and arguing about whether climate change was real or not, whether it was caused by humans or not, whether it was bad or not, whether we should do something about it or not”.
“We need to look at the sustainability of some of the places where we have built previously,” he said. “We’ve got a long history of poor past decisions in New Zealand that we’re confronting right now.”The worst-affected areas appeared to be around the east coast and far north of the North Island. Some communities, such as the coastal region of Gisborne/Tairāwhiti, parts of the Hawkes Bay and Northland have been cut off entirely, lacking power, mobile networks or road access.
McAnulty said that while “we are through the worst of the storm itself, we are all facing extensive flooding slips, damaged roads and infrastructure”.Photograph: Diego Opatowski/AFP/Getty Images By Tuesday afternoon, power was cut off to 225,000 people across the North Island, the energy minister, Megan Woods, said. The national grid operator warned that power might not be restored to some for “for days to weeks, rather than hours”.The National Emergency Management Agency’s national manager of operations, Roger Ball, said: “The situation is really evolving minute by minute. We’ve got self-evacuations at the moment and formal evacuations under way.
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