New Zealand seeks international help as cyclone cripples North Island
NAPIER: New Zealand deployed gunships and helicopters to deliver water, food and fuel to cities cut off by Cyclone Gabrielle on Thursday, as overwhelmed authorities embraced overseas offers of help.
Five people have died, 100 are missing and 10,500 more have been displaced in a disaster that has crippled the country’s populous North Island.
Four days of violent winds and lashing rains caused landslides and widespread flooding that lacerated the island’s road network, caused rolling power cuts and knocked out hundreds of mobile phone towers.
On Thursday, the east-coast city of Napier was cut off again after experts detected damage to the last useable bridge linking its 65,000 r
