New Zealand:
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern toured flood-hit regions of the country’s South Island on Tuesday, expressing shock at the destruction left when 3 months’ worth of rain fell in 3 days.
Swollen rivers swept away bridges and landslides blocked highways in the deluge, which lastly started to ease on Tuesday soon after a 72-hour barrage that Ardern described as a after-in-a-century occasion.
“It’s quite devastating, there’s a lot of work to do — a big clean-up job lies ahead of us,” she told reporters soon after surveying the harm in a military helicopter.
Entire communities, like 35,000 individuals in the town of Ashburton, have been left isolated by the floodwaters and Ardern stated crews have been scrambling to restore road and rail hyperlinks.
“We’ve got thousands of people who are not connected to their town, they’re not connected to their schools or place of work,” she stated.
“So that’s a real priority. It’s devastating to see what communities will be dealing with for some time to come.”
The official Metservice forecaster stated the highest rainfall was at Mount Somers, which recorded 539 millimetres (21.2 inches) more than the 3-day period.
While hundreds of individuals have been forced to evacuate, there have been no reports of really serious injuries.
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