Cyclone Gabrielle: Hundreds rescued from rooftops as New Zealand grapples with damage

 According to New Zealand officials, Cyclone Gabrielle's destruction, which resulted in massive flooding and landslides across the North Island, claimed the lives of at least four people, among them a child.

Officials reported a child's body was discovered on Wednesday in Hawke's Bay, one of the worst-affected areas.

About 300 individuals who were trapped on rooftops there had been rescued by rescue helicopters.

Although the cyclone has left New Zealand, as of Wednesday, 10,500 people were still without homes.

On Wednesday night, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins noted that "many people are missing for whom the police do hold considerable worries."

Meanwhile, late on Wednesday, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake was felt strongly throughout the nation.

The quake, which occurred off the North Island's coast not far from the nation's capital Wellington, had no initial reports of property damage or casualties.

While most of the rain has stopped, many isolated towns and villages are still shut off due to rising flooding and a shortage of electricity.

Chris Hipkins, the prime minister of New Zealand, described Gabrielle as the nation's worst weather disaster in a century. It is predicted to have an impact on at least a third of the five million people living there.

With regions like Hawke's Bay, Coromandel, and Northland among the worst hit, the storm's devastation has been most severe in coastal settlements on the extreme north and east coast of the North Island.

According to Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty, the situation in Hawke's Bay, a well-liked tourist resort with a few outlying communities, was of special concern to the authorities.

Residents of Hawke's Bay were forced to swim through bedroom windows when the cyclone made landfall on Monday night as the water level climbed.

A military spokeswoman stated that "in some cases, flood waters reached up to the second level of homes where people were being rescued."

In the region, at least three persons have passed away. Authorities reported that one person was found dead on the coastline, while another was killed in a landslide at a woman's home. The toddler was reportedly caught in rising water, according to police.

a firefighter's body who had gone missing after getting caught in a landslide

The body of a missing firefighter who had been caught in a landslide in west of Auckland was also found on Tuesday.

Mr McAnulty on Wednesday said it would be unsurprising if the death toll rose further.

However, he praised the "phenomenal" work of the rescuers who pulled "around 300 people from rooftops" at Hawke's Bay, including 60 from a sizable structure marooned by floodwaters.

On the island, more than 140,000 residents remained without electricity on Wednesday, despite the fact that 80,000 houses had had their electricity restored.

Due to concerns over shortages, residents in hard-hit areas are also being urged to practice water and food conservation.

On Tuesday, New Zealand declared a national state of emergency, allowing it to organize its response to the catastrophe.

Only twice has the government ever proclaimed a national state of emergency, first at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and once after the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

New Zealand's climate minister has attributed to the scale of the disaster to climate change.

James Shaw stated in parliament on Tuesday that "the severity of it, of course, [is] made worse by the fact that our global temperatures have already climbed by 1.1 degrees.

"We must cease using justifications for our inaction. When the beach is flooded, we are unable to bury our heads in the sand. Now is the time to take action."

Only two weeks had passed since the North Island of New Zealand experienced record-breaking rainfall and flooding. The floods resulted in four fatalities.