{"id":3771,"date":"2026-04-21T11:23:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T07:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/?p=3771"},"modified":"2026-04-21T11:23:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T07:53:52","slug":"new-zealand-declares-state-of-emergency-in-wellington-as-floods-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/?p=3771&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand declares state of emergency in Wellington as floods hit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand has declared a <\/p>\n<h3>state of emergency in its capital city Wellington<\/h3>\n<p> as torrential rain and flash flooding drenched the country&#8217;s North Island.<\/p>\n<p>Footage online shows vehicles submerged, trees uprooted and houses hit by landslides. Wellington received a <b>record 77mm (3in) of rain in less than an hour<\/b> on Monday, said mayor Andrew Little.<\/p>\n<p>Local authorities advised residents to hunker down, with rain forecast for the next day and a half. Some <b>flights at Wellington Airport have been cancelled<\/b> and several schools have shut their campuses.<\/p>\n<p>More than a dozen people have been evacuated while a 60-year-old man in the Karori suburb has been reported missing. No fatalities have been reported so far.<\/p>\n<p>This series of flash floods comes less than a week after <b>Cyclone Vaianu swept through the North Island<\/b> last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Research over the years has shown that <\/p>\n<h3>climate change has made extreme weather events<\/h3>\n<p>, including floods, more common and more intense around the world.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The wild weather continues. We&#8217;ve had flooding, slips and evacuations&#8230; The flooding has been strong enough to move cars, and many manhole covers have been lifted,&#8221; Little said in a video published on his Facebook page.<\/p>\n<p>In the suburb of Kingston, a resident told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) that he had tried to escape on the back of his neighbour&#8217;s motorbike after a landslide buried a nearby road in the early hours of Monday. &#8220;It&#8217;s definitely a big event,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You wouldn&#8217;t have wanted to be under it, it wouldn&#8217;t have been survivable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Another resident in the suburb of Mornington said his garden had been &#8220;inundated with water, you couldn&#8217;t see the grass or anything&#8221;. There was a &#8220;huge deluge, flow, river in fact, flowing through the garden&#8221;, he told RNZ.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Mitchell, the minister for emergency management and recovery, said they were expecting the &#8220;worst of the weather&#8221; later on Monday evening. &#8220;If you are in the Wellington region, be prepared,&#8221; he said in a post on Facebook. &#8220;If you are going to evacuate make those decisions early and keep yourself updated with information.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The emergency management office for the Wellington region has advised residents to <b>cut or delay all non-essential travel<\/b>, and for those residing in low-lying or flood-prone areas to consider relocating to their friends&#8217; and families&#8217; for at least the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n<p>The <b>Wellington City Mission has been set up for those who need shelter<\/b>, the office added.<\/p>\n<p>#WellingtonFloods #NewZealandEmergency #FlashFloodingNZ #ClimateChangeImpact #ExtremeWeather #NorthIslandFloods #WellingtonRain #EmergencyResponse #NZWeather #FloodAlert<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Zealand has declared a state of emergency in its capital city Wellington as torrential rain and flash flooding drenched the country&#8217;s North Island. Footage online shows vehicles submerged, trees uprooted and houses hit by landslides. Wellington received a record 77mm (3in) of rain in less than an hour on Monday, said mayor Andrew Little. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3772,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanak.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}