New Zealand has declared a state of emergency in its capital city Wellington as torrential rainfall and flash flooding inundate the North Island, prompting evacuations and widespread disruption.
Mayor Andrew Little reported that Wellington received a staggering 77mm (3 inches) of rain in less than an hour on Monday—a record-breaking deluge that transformed streets into rivers and triggered dangerous landslides. Online footage captured submerged vehicles, uprooted trees, and homes damaged by earth movements.
"The wild weather continues. We've had flooding, slips and evacuations... The flooding has been strong enough to move cars, and many manhole covers have been lifted," Little stated in a video message.
Emergency officials have advised residents to shelter in place as heavy rain is forecast to continue for another 36 hours. More than a dozen people have been evacuated from affected areas, while a 60-year-old man in the Karori suburb remains missing. No fatalities have been confirmed.
Transportation and education systems have been severely impacted, with Wellington Airport cancelling multiple flights and several schools closing their campuses. The Wellington City Mission has opened shelters for displaced residents.
Mark Mitchell, Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery, warned that the worst conditions were expected later Monday evening. "If you are in the Wellington region, be prepared," he urged on social media. "If you are going to evacuate, make those decisions early."
Residents described harrowing scenes as the floods struck. One Kingston resident told Radio New Zealand he attempted to escape on a neighbor's motorbike after a landslide buried a nearby road. "It's definitely a big event," he said. "You wouldn't have wanted to be under it, it wouldn't have been survivable."
Another Mornington resident reported his garden being "inundated with water, you couldn't see the grass or anything," describing a "huge deluge, flow, river in fact, flowing through the garden."
The Wellington Regional Emergency Management Office has advised residents to avoid all non-essential travel and recommended that those in low-lying or flood-prone areas relocate to safer locations with friends or family for at least 24 hours.
This emergency comes less than a week after Cyclone Vaianu swept through the North Island, highlighting concerns about increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events linked to climate change.