Key Points
- The unnamed man walked 70km from Putorino to Napier to give rescue workers help with their missions.
- Cyclone Gabrielle's death toll stands at six in New Zealand.
- Aerial surveillance shows communities still cut off from main centres due to flooding or busted roads.
Cyclone Gabrielle's death toll stands at six in New Zealand as a spell of good weather improves prospects for rescue teams and recovery.
Alongside stories of loss, those of heroism are emerging from the catastrophe too.
Urban Search and Rescue team leader Ken Cooper from FENZ said a man walked 70km from Putorino to Napier to give rescue workers help with their missions.
"That's a day and a half walk," he told Radio NZ. "He walked to give us a list of people still trapped up in the East Coast."
Meanwhile, residents across North Island, but especially Hawke's Bay, are hopeful that five days without rain in the forecast will help flood waters recede.
A sixth death was confirmed later on Thursday from Muriwai, in the hard-hit west coast of Auckland.
The man, Craig Stevens, was a volunteer firefighter who was hospitalised on Monday after attending a house that then collapsed on him, also killing fellow firefighter Dave van Zwanenberg.
Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) chief executive Kerry Gregory said his crew were "still coming to terms" with the fact they'd lost two comrades.
"All of Fire and Emergency will feel his loss, and my heart goes out to his family," he said.
A seventh death has been reported by news outlet Stuff, of a man in his 70s in the Hawke's Bay settlement of Waiohiki, just southwest of Napier.
The death is yet to be confirmed by police.
Waiohiki is wedged between two rivers - the Tutaekuri and the Ngaruroro - that burst their banks under huge rainfall on Tuesday, with flooding remaining on Friday.
Napier Airport received more than an average summer's rainfall in 72 hours from Cyclone Gabrielle.
A woman was killed in Putorino on Tuesday when a house collapsed on her, under weight of a landslip.
Hawke's Bay civil defence controller Iain Maxwell said aerial surveillance had revealed communities still cut off from main centres due to flooding or busted roads.
"There's dozens of them," he told Radio NZ.
"We've had aircraft leaning into a couple of locations to areas we knew people had made contact ... to assess needs and get a feel for what we're going to prepare for."
Mr Cooper says search and rescue teams are prioritising the Esk Valley, north of Napier, and Awatoto, to the city's south.
"We're looking to make sure we've searched every property we can over the next few days," he told Radio NZ.
"A lot of properties are completely filled with silt."
Mr Cooper said the team rescued around 40 stranded people on Thursday.
