A category 3 tropical cyclone, Vaianu, struck New Zealand’s North Island on Sunday, bringing heavy flooding and infrastructure damage. Authorities expressed relief as the storm bypassed Auckland, the nation’s largest city with 1.8 million residents.
The cyclone made landfall in the Bay of Plenty on the east coast, where hundreds of residents had evacuated or were advised to avoid hazardous sea conditions. The Bay of Plenty and nearby Coromandel areas faced the strongest impact, with winds exceeding 130 kilometres per hour (81 mph). These powerful gusts caused roofs to be torn off houses and left approximately 5,000 customers without electricity.
Emergency services responded to hundreds of calls, but there were no immediate reports of injuries. New Zealand’s MetService had warned that Vaianu was a “multi-hazard, potentially life-threatening event” as it moved southward across the Pacific Ocean.
Several regions were placed under states of emergency on Saturday, though many escaped the worst effects of the cyclone, including Auckland. Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell noted that the storm’s shift eastward lessened its intensity on populated areas. “It’s moved more to the fringes and more to the east, which means that we haven’t quite seen the intensity that we had prepared for or that we thought we were going to get hit with. So that is good news,” Mitchell said.
He cautioned that some locations would still face heavy rainfall and possible coastal flooding throughout the day. The cyclone was forecast to continue across the eastern North Island and exit near Hawke’s Bay later Sunday, following a path similar to Cyclone Gabrielle, which devastated the region three years ago.
Gabrielle was far more destructive, causing 11 fatalities and resulting in repair costs estimated at US$8.5 billion.
