Police in New Zealand were searching for a man who was swept away while attempting to cross a river as authorities warned of life-threatening conditions amid flooding and landslides following days of torrential rainfall.
Local councils across parts of the North Island asked residents in low-lying and flood-prone areas to move to higher ground, while others were told to prepare to evacuate at short notice as rainfall intensified on Wednesday. Several roads were closed because of slips and surface flooding, the New Zealand Transport Agency said.
Police said a man was missing after he and his vehicle were washed away during a river crossing near the town of Warkworth, north of Auckland, earlier on Wednesday. Another passenger was able to escape and raise an alarm, according to local media reports.
Emergency management and recovery minister Mark Mitchell said authorities were particularly concerned about Northland, where the ground was already saturated after days of rain.
“They’re basically fully saturated in terms of the ground … and we’ve got more coming,” Mr Mitchell told Radio New Zealand, warning that further rainfall could quickly worsen conditions.
MetService, the national weather forecaster, issued red heavy rain warnings for large parts of the upper North Island, including Northland, the Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty and Gisborne, citing a threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding and landslides. Auckland, Hawke’s Bay and parts of the upper South Island were placed under lower-level warnings.
The forecaster said the weather was being driven by what it described as an “extremely moist air mass from the tropics”, with intense downpours expected to continue into Thursday, particularly in areas where catchments were already overwhelmed.
Local states of emergency were declared in several districts, including Whangārei, Thames-Coromandel, Bay of Plenty, Hauraki and Tairāwhiti. Civil Defence issued emergency alerts in parts of Northland, urging residents to stay off roads, avoid non-essential travel and evacuate immediately if floodwaters rose.
Images published by New Zealand media showed farmland submerged, water flowing across highways and homes surrounded by floodwater. In the coastal Northland settlement of Ōakura, evacuations were under way or being actively considered, with footage showing floodwaters entering properties.
A woman was rescued by kayak from the deck of her flooded home on the Coromandel Peninsula, while neighbours helped save a 94-year-old man trapped by rising water, according to The Stuff. In Whangārei, the mayor warned that wastewater systems were at capacity, urging residents to reduce water use to avoid spills.
Parts of the Coromandel Peninsula recorded close to a month’s worth of rain in just 12 hours, according to MetService data. The tourist town of Whitianga was cut off by road after State Highway 25 was closed in both directions due to flooding and slips, while multiple highways across the peninsula and Northland were shut as conditions deteriorated.
Heavy rain watches were also in place for large swathes of the country, including Waikato, Taupō, Nelson, Canterbury and the West Coast, highlighting the scale of the weather system affecting both islands.
Emergency services warned that fast-moving water, unstable ground and debris posed a serious risk to life, urging people not to drive or walk through floodwaters. Civil Defence advised residents to keep emergency supplies ready and check on neighbours if it was safe to do so.
The severe weather comes as New Zealand continues to face increasing pressure on infrastructure from extreme rainfall events. While authorities have not attributed the latest flooding to climate change, scientists have repeatedly warned that warming temperatures are increasing the intensity of heavy rainfall across the country, raising the risk of flash floods and landslides.
Officials said damage assessments would begin once conditions eased, but warned that further evacuations remained possible if rainfall continued at the forecast intensity.
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