Second victim in a stable condition after shots were fired when fight broke out in city centre
One of two people who were shot in downtown Auckland on Thursday night has died in hospital, police have confirmed.
Police were called after receiving reports of a fight between a group of people at about 11.30pm on Thursday on lower Queen Street, in Auckland’s city centre.
Continue reading...New Zealand police say shooter had history of family violence, adding there is no reason World Cup opening match shouldn’t go ahead
Two people have been killed and six injured after a shooting in Auckland city centre on Thursday morning, hours before the Women’s World Cup kicked off there.
New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins said the gunman was also dead and that there was no national security risk or rise in the national threat level. Visiting the scene on Thursday afternoon, he confirmed that that the World Cup would proceed as planned and that people should feel safe to attend the matches. He described the shooting as a “standalone incident”, but fans would see an enhanced police presences in and around sports venues.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed. You can read our full story on the shooting in Auckland at the link below:
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has cancelled a trip to the city of Hamilton, about 120 kilometres (75 miles) south of Auckland, and is on his way back to the national capital Wellington, media reports said.
He is speaking now.
Continue reading...Residents of New Zealand’s largest city say people are ‘heartbroken’ at fresh damage wreaked by storm
Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, has been hit by a tornado, two months after the wider region was devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle and three months after the city was struck by deadly flooding.
Auckland Emergency Management said it began receiving reports of “localised havoc” around 9pm on Sunday, according to the NZ Herald. Authorities received more than 30 calls, with roofs lifted off homes and trees toppled.
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New Zealand’s national power grid operator has declared a “grid emergency” and warned that power might not be restored to some for “for days to weeks, rather than hours”.
The widespread power cuts in Hawkes Bay and Bay of Plenty happened after a substation flooded during severe rain from Cyclone Gabrielle.
Continue reading...Damaging storm causes wind gusts up to 160km/h. This blog is now closed
Rain and wind expected to intensify
The approach of Cyclone Gabrielle is bringing particularly strong winds, heavy rain and huge swells to Auckland and nearby regions.
The impact of Gabrielle is still in its early stages and further serious and severe weather is still expected for Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland) later today into Tuesday morning.
Now is not the time for complacency.
Continue reading...Red weather warnings issued for rain and wind; schools closed and flights cancelled in Auckland
Evacuations were under way and thousands of people were without power as Storm Gabrielle approached New Zealand’s North Island, where the largest city is still recovering from record rain last month.
As the former tropical cyclone barrelled towards New Zealand, the MetService issued a series of red weather warnings for intense rain and gale-force winds, including for Auckland, the largest city, which was hit by flooding a fortnight ago.
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Continue reading...Authorities prepare emergency shelter for residents and tourists with fears of significant damage from gale-force winds and dangerous surf
A red alert warning was issued on Norfolk Island with residents urged to take shelter in the strongest part of their homes as Cyclone Gabrielle approached with wind gusts of up to 140km/h and dangerous surf conditions.
Emergency Management Norfolk Island urged residents to stay inside until an all-clear message was broadcast. An emergency shelter was established in a town hall for those who could not make it home safely.
Continue reading...As rain and flooding eases, attention turns to assessing the scale of the damage after four people were killed by unprecedented extreme weather
Insurers say devastating flooding in Auckland was the “biggest climate event” in New Zealand’s history, as rain eased after days of downpours and a clean-up of the city began.
Friday was the wettest day on record for New Zealand’s largest city, with severe rain leading flood waters to sweep through streets and down highways, killing four people. Schools and businesses closed as buildings and roads were ravaged by the deluge. Auckland International Airport was shuttered temporarily, stranding thousands of travellers overseas.
Continue reading...Annual rankings return Austria’s capital to first place, as former title-holder Auckland tumbles to 34th and Ukraine war sees eastern cities slump
The Austrian capital, Vienna, has made a comeback as the world’s most liveable city, according to an annual report from the Economist.
Vienna snatched the top spot from New Zealand city Auckland, which tumbled down to 34th place due to coronavirus pandemic restrictions, according to the report by the Economist intelligence unit published on Thursday.
Continue reading...It wasn’t a financially astute move but it led to my TV series and helped me discover the truly important things in life
My entire experience of Auckland changed when I got a boat. It was the perfect antidote to a professional DJ lifestyle, where getting up at 5am to be on the water become immeasurably preferable to coming home at 5am from work. On trips out I began sticking my head underwater with such vigour that I somehow turned it into a whole new profession.
It didn’t happen straight away, of course. My 40-year-old, 14-foot beige fibreglass boat with a semi-reliable two-stroke engine, named Brown Thunder, only had so much range, and my real goal lay much farther offshore, tantalisingly out of reach. A place where tales of clear blue tropical water and huge fish swirled around a group of uninhabited islands, teasing me from the pages of marine magazines or the crusty lips of old salty sea-mates.
Continue reading...Jacinda Ardern warns of more cases as Auckland cluster grows to seven, marking New Zealand’s first local transmissions of Delta variant
New Zealand’s coronavirus cluster has grown to seven, with genomic sequencing linking it to the Delta outbreak that began in Sydney, as the country woke up to day one of a snap lockdown stemming from just one case.
The country went into a snap level four lockdown – the highest level of restrictions – on Tuesday night, after detecting one case with no obvious links to the border. New Zealand has not had a level 4 lockdown in more than a year, and the case is the country’s first instance of Delta transmission in the community.
Continue reading...Previous first-place holder Vienna fell out of the top 10 as cities in New Zealand, Australia and Japan fared best in rankings
The Covid-19 pandemic has shaken up the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual ranking of most liveable cities, propelling Auckland to top spot in place of Vienna, which crashed out of the top 10 altogether as the island nations of New Zealand, Australia and Japan fared best.
The Austrian capital had led the list since 2018 and for years ran neck and neck with Melbourne at the top of the survey of 140 urban centres. New Zealand’s elimination of Covid-19 within its borders, through lockdown measures helped by its geographic isolation, gave its cities a big boost.
Continue reading...Restrictions in country’s biggest city to be imposed after single Covid case of unknown origin was recorded
New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, said the country’s biggest city, Auckland, will go into a seven-day lockdown from early morning on Sunday after a new local case of the coronavirus of unknown origin emerged.
It comes two weeks after Auckland’s nearly 2 million residents were plunged into a snap three-day lockdown when a family of three were diagnosed with the more transmissible UK variant of coronavirus.
Continue reading...New case is not linked to main outbreak in Auckland, which has so far infected 69 people
A new case of Covid-19 separate from the main cluster has been confirmed in New Zealand, with the infected person identified as a maintenance worker in a quarantine hotel in Auckland.
On Tuesday, 13 new cases were confirmed, with 12 relating to the Auckland cluster, which now numbers 69 in total.
Continue reading...Cabinet to meet at 3pm to discuss Auckland lockdown as health minister Chris Hipkins says city not yet looking at moving from level three to four
New Zealand is not yet looking at a level 4 lockdown, because the rising number of Covid-19 cases are all related to a single cluster, the health minister has said.
Chris Hipkins told Radio NZ that more than one cluster would have to be circulating for the country to rise to level 4 restrictions, and so far there was no evidence of that, though more cases from the same cluster had emerged overnight.
Continue reading...Talent agency job ad lists long skinny limbs, acne scars, facial lines, missing bones and large eyes as desirable features
Have an overbite, ears that stick out, small eyes, or a “bulbous or interesting” nose? Hollywood has finally come calling.
A New Zealand talent agency is looking for actors to appear in the big-budget Lord of the Rings television adaptation, due to resume filming in the country shortly, and is seeking urgent applications from people they have euphemistically deemed “funky looking” in an unusual job advertisement.
Continue reading...Turkish Angora roams tattoo parlours, office towers and churches, posing for social media snapshots along the way
A feline that roams New Zealand’s capital city and is welcomed into tattoo parlours, hairdressers and office towers has become a social media star, with 30,000 followers who track his every movement online.
Mittens first came to attention in 2018 after repeatedly wandering inner-city dwellings, including the university, the post office, and a Catholic church. Mittens was also reportedly taken to the police station by concerned locals.
Continue reading...A New Zealand jury has been shown CCTV of the man accused of murdering Grace Millane wheeling out a luggage trolley bearing two suitcases – one containing the 21-year-old’s body – into a hotel lift and loading them into a hire car. The man – whose identity has been suppressed by the court – is accused of strangling her in his apartment. He has pleaded not guilty to murder. Millane's body was found crammed inside a suitcase buried in scrubland outside the city
Continue reading...Forensic evidence shows ‘extremely strong scientific support’ that blood in CityLife hotel room was Millane’s
Forensic scientists have given evidence at the murder trial of Grace Millane in Auckland’s high court, and said the blood found in the accused’s hotel room most likely came from the British backpacker.
Millane, 21, was on a round-the-world trip when she disappeared on 2 December in New Zealand’s largest city during a date.
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