New Zealand: 100 hikers cut off after deluge destroys roads and sparks landslides

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/04/new-zealand-100-hikers-cut-off-after-deluge-destroys-roads-and-sparks-landslides

New Zealand: 100 hikers cut off after deluge destroys roads and sparks landslides

Two hikers injured by landslide as helicopters ferry those stranded to nearby town in South Island

Charlotte Graham-McLay in Wellington

Tue 4 Feb 2020 02.27 GMT Last modified on Tue 4 Feb 2020 05.36 GMT

About 100 hikers are being rescued by helicopter after becoming stranded overnight on popular bush tracks in New Zealand’s South Island when a month’s rainfall in a single day washed out roads and bridges and caused flooding and landslides.

Eight helicopters and waiting buses ferried the hikers stuck in shelters in Fiordland – and about 70 drivers trapped on the Milford Road – to safety in the town of Te Anau. Two of the hikers were injured when the hut they were sheltering in was hit by a landslide.

Officials on Tuesday began checking among those rescued to confirm that everyone on the trails had been accounted for.

Nearly 400 others – including 195 tourists – are trapped in the nearby township of Milford Sound and will have to wait until at least Wednesday to be rescued after flooding cut off the highway in and out of the town.
(snip)

Fiordland is deluged by about 10 metres of rain a year – and 1.1 metres had fallen in the past three days alone.
(snip)