Military helicopters winched stranded storm survivors to safety in New Zealand on Wednesday, after Cyclone Gabrielle killed four people and displaced 10,500 more.
With the storm now fading into the South Pacific, rescue teams are finally reaching regions cut off by days of torrential rain and gale-force winds.
The disaster has severed roads, collapsed houses and cut power across a swathe of New Zealand's North Island, home to more than three-quarters of the country's five million residents. "The devastation is widespread and has taken a toll beyond property and livelihoods to people," New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said.With the cellphone network disrupted, police have received over 1,400 reports of people who are still "uncontactable".
Her daughter, who lives 600 kilometers away in Napier on the east coast, was also forced out of her home when a landslide hit the area. McAnulty hailed the "phenomenal" efforts of rescue workers and military personnel who plucked "roughly 300 people from rooftops" in Hawke's Bay -- a sprawling expanse of lush farmland, rugged mountains and hard-to-reach towns.Aerial images from the area showed a once-bucolic landscape riven with torrents of floodwater, latticed with crumbling roads and scarred by massive landslides.
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