One person was dead and two were missing on Saturday as severe storms lashed New Zealand’s North Island, cutting off main arteries to the capital, Wellington, with floods and mudslides.
Emergency officials continued their search for two pilots whose cargo plane was thought to have crashed into the sea off the Kapiti coast, about 50km north of Wellington, late on Friday.
A police spokesperson said it was difficult to say whether Barry Crowley (57) and Paul Miller (50) could have survived the night in the rough seas.
South-east of Auckland, police and searchers found the body of a woman swept away on Saturday while trying to cross a swollen river in a four-wheel drive vehicle.
Main road and rail routes serving the Wellington were closed by flooding and mudslides and a civil defence emergency was declared for most of the coast area north of the capital.
Civil defence coordinator for the Kapiti coast area Rodger McCormack said the main state highway was not expected to reopen until midday at the earliest.
Auckland ferry companies cancelled sailings to outer islands Friday night in the face of gale-force winds.
The unseasonally cold spring blast was expected to hit newborn lambs in the South Island where freezing rain and snow was expected. — Sapa-AFP