June 26 (Reuters) – A storm battered central New Zealand on Friday, bringing air traffic to a standstill in the capital Wellington, knocking out power to thousands of households and triggering flooding and landslides.
National weather forecaster MetService issued multiple severe weather warnings as a low-pressure system swept across the country.
It warned of heavy rain and wind gusts up to 120 kph (74 mph), after recording winds exceeding 150 kph in parts of the country overnight.
Winds from the storm forced the cancellation of 200 flights in and out of Wellington.
“Most flights in and out of Wellington Airport have been cancelled today, and most, but not all, scheduled flights this evening have also been cancelled,” the airport said.
“The winds are forecast to ease tomorrow which hopefully will allow flights to resume.”
Air New Zealand confirmed it cancelled all domestic flights to and from the capital, as well as all flights from New Plymouth airport.
“Services will only resume when it is safe to do so,” the airline said.
Wellington Electricity said 4,000 customers had lost power and warned further outages could occur as wind speeds peaked in the evening. The utility said it had earlier restored power to about 3,000 customers.
“It may take a few days, possibly into mid next week to restore power to all customers,” it said on its website.
Officials in Lower Hutt, northeast of Wellington, reported flooded roads and two landslides, with emergency services responding.
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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