New Zealand’s recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle has passed a mighty milestone, with police clearing the long list of people reported as uncontactable in the storm’s wake.
However, the country remains in a state of national emergency four weeks after Gabrielle’s arrival, with the removal of silt looming as the next major challenge.
The death toll stands at 11, nine from North Island’s eastern regions of Hawke’s Bay and Tairawhiti, and two from the west coast of Auckland.
Police have announced the number of people recorded as uncontactable, which once stood over 6000, is now at zero, meaning early fears for a ballooning death toll have not been realised.
“It’s a phenomenal effort from the police,” Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty said.
A 100-strong team worked remotely to gauge the whereabouts of missing Kiwis, with on-the-ground search and rescue crews and police assisting those enquiries and whittling down the list.
Nine days ago, police announced they were down to four uncontactable people, three of whom were wanted on active charges.
“They’ve had to really work hard to find those final few. Some may not have wanted to be found because it was the police that were looking for them. But they’ve got those numbers down here. So good on them,” Mr McAnulty said.
For thousands of Kiwis, the clean-up continues, and their biggest challenge is the removal of silt.
In the hardest-hit regions of Hawke’s Bay, including the Esk Valley, many houses and properties, including productive land where orchards and vineyards once sat, there is instead huge fields of soil repositioned from floodwaters.
“It’s a massive problem,” Mr McAnulty said.
“It’s hard to even just explain how big of an issue this is. We’re talking about some areas that have got silt that’s eight feet high.”
Mr McAnulty said the central government stood ready to fund silt removal, with councils too small to fund the job themselves.
“It’s not going to be cheap. We’ve said we’ll help where we can.”
Cyclone Recovery and Finance Minister Grant Robertson, who is tallying the cost of the overall response ahead of the budget, has cooled on earlier projections the storm could cost as much as the 2011 Canterbury Earthquakes.
Those earthquakes, which killed 186 people, left the government with a bill north of $NZ13 billion ($A12 billion), while the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake cost roughly $NZ3 billion ($A2.8 billion).
“We’re probably closer to Kaikoura-level cost than we are to a Canterbury-level cost. But we are still pulling in that data,” he said.
Mr Robertson said the government would look to spread recovery costs over several years, with major announcements expected in the May budget.
– AAP
