WELLINGTON:
Hundreds of folks have been evacuated overnight and several more face the danger of abandoning their residences in New Zealand’s Canterbury area as heavy rains raised water levels and triggered widespread flooding.
At least 300 residences in Canterbury have been evacuated overnight as water levels rose in rivers across the area in a “one-in-100-year deluge”, regional media reports mentioned on Monday.
Several highways, schools and offices have been closed and New Zealand’s Defence Forces deployed helicopters to rescue some folks stranded in floods in the Ashburton location.
Ashburton’s Mayor Neil Brown mentioned “half of Ashburton” would require to be evacuated if the river’s levees broke but there was “still quite a bit of capacity” in the river.
“We need it to stop raining to let those rivers drop,” mentioned Brown, according to the New Zealand Herald.
New Zealand’s MetService had issued a red warning on Sunday for heavy rain for Canterbury and numerous warnings elsewhere.
The government announced NZ$one hundred,000 ($72,500) towards a Mayoral Relief Fund to help Canterbury communities impacted by the flooding, Kris Faafoi, the acting minister for emergency management mentioned in a statement.
“While it is still very early to know the full cost of the damage, we expect it to be significant and this initial contribution will help those communities to start to get back on their feet,” mentioned Faafoi.
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