Dunedin, New Zealand, records its wettest day in a century as flooding cuts the city off by road

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The New Zealand city of Dunedin was cut off by road due to flooding Friday after recording its wettest day in more than a century.

Local authorities in the South Island city said more than 80 people who lived in low-lying areas spent the night in emergency shelters after the rain began Thursday. There have been no deaths and no one is unaccounted for.

But the city of 135,000 people was effectively cut off when the main highways leading into and out of Dunedin were closed due to flooding. They were expected to remain closed until Saturday, the City Council said on its website.

Other roads were closed due to landslides. Conditions were unpredictable said local government spokesperson Chris Henderson, who urged residents not to drive unless it was “extremely essential.”

A local state of emergency remains in place for the city, which is due to be battered by rain until late Friday.

The forecaster NIWA said 13 centimeters (5 inches) of rain fell on Dunedin between Thursday and Friday morning, nearly two and a half times the October average of 6 centimeters (2.3 inches). It was the wettest day on record since April 1923.

Floods are among New Zealand’s most destructive and frequent natural disasters, and extreme weather events have grown more severe and unpredictable. In January 2023, the largest city, Auckland, recorded its wettest month on record after catastrophic floods killed four people and caused nearly 2 billion New Zealand dollars ($1.2 billion) in damage.

Days later, Cyclone Gabrielle — the costliest tropical cyclone on record in the Southern Hemisphere — devastated parts of the North Island, killing 11.