Cyclone Gabrielle has left a trail of destruction and human suffering in New Zealand. A live-stream footage is going viral on the internet which shows workers in Hawke's Bay trapped by flooding using refrigerators and mattresses to navigate the floods, BBC reported.
The video shows people floating on empty refrigerators and mattresses. The 37-minute is going viral.
Watch the video here:
According to Stuff, a news website based in New Zealand, the workers were airlifted from the rooftop of their workplace in Fernhill, a suburb of Queenstown.
According to an AFP report, about 10,000 people are displaced, cities and towns are still without power and drinking water, and local government officials estimate tens or even hundreds of communities have yet to be contacted.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins toured the Hawke's Bay region on Friday, saying "the whole country" was feeling for communities affected.
"Some people are in a very, very fragile state.
"I ask people to keep going, you know, we will get through this. We will come out the other side of it. But it is an exceptionally challenging circumstance at the moment."
Cyclone Gabrielle formed off the northeastern coast of Australia in the Coral Sea on February 8, before barrelling across the South Pacific.
It bore down on New Zealand's northern coast on Sunday, bringing gusts of 140 kilometres (87 miles) an hour.
Over the next 24 hours, coastal communities were doused with 20 centimetres (almost eight inches) of rain and pounded by 11-metre (36-foot) waves.
Many parts of northern New Zealand were already waterlogged when Cyclone Gabrielle hit, having been drenched by record rainfall two weeks ago.
The national MetService said Auckland Airport received almost half its annual average rainfall in the past 45 days.
Scientists say Cyclone Gabrielle had fed off hot seas, driven by climate change and La Nina weather patterns.
