New Zealand\u2019s national carrier on Tuesday cancelled all flights in and out of the capital, Wellington, and the southern city of Christchurch declared a state of<\/p>\n
emergency as the remnants of tropical cyclone Gita pummelled the country.<\/p>\n
Even before the storm hit in full force, heavy rains in the centre of New Zealand brought floods in Christchurch, prompting a warning from Mayor Lianne Dalziel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe full impact of the storm will be felt overnight and tomorrow morning,\u201d she said, urging residents of low-lying areas to evacuate. \u201cWe are expecting homes to<\/p>\n
be flooded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Air New Zealand said all flights to the capital would be grounded from 2.45 p.m. (0145 GMT) as weather authorities issued warnings of severe weather and<\/p>\n
heavy rain and gusts of up to 150 kph (93 mph).<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said troops had fanned out to areas likely to be the hardest hit and the national Civil Defence office in Wellington was on standby<\/p>\n
to help.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy message still to people is please look out for your local warnings and expect disruption to travel and please just be careful,\u201d she told reporters at<\/p>\n
parliament.<\/p>\n
Cyclone Gita hit the Pacific island nations of Fiji and Tonga last week, packing winds up to 275 kph (171 mph). Fiji escaped major damage but Tonga suffered<\/p>\n
widespread destruction and flooding. Earlier, the storm had caused extensive damage in Samoa and American Samoa.<\/p>\n
The cyclone had since been downgraded to a storm, but forecasters said it was still likely to wreak havoc on Tuesday evening as it traversed the centre of New<\/p>\n
Zealand.<\/p>\n
Parts of the country are still reeling from a huge storm that prompted authorities to declare states of emergency at the beginning of February.<\/p>\n
More than 40 schools and preschools shut in the upper South Island, while mayors urged people to stay home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Zealand\u2019s national carrier on Tuesday cancelled all flights in and out of the capital, Wellington, and the southern city of Christchurch declared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22523,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22521\/revisions\/22523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}