On Friday, the city of Auckland was disrupted by torrential rain and erratic weather, and an Elton John concert had to be postponed shortly before it was scheduled to begin.
In the largest city in New Zealand, 40,000 people were anticipated to attend the evening event at Mt Smart Stadium. Not long before John was scheduled to enter the stage at 7:30 p.m., organizers opted to cancel despite the fact that thousands of people were already present.
The event was promoted as John’s last goodbye tour. One of the concert organizers, Frontier Touring, tweeted that the event had been postponed due to hazardous weather.
A large number of concertgoers who had endured the weather were disappointed that the decision hadn’t been made earlier.
The MetService weather service issued a warning about flash flooding and slick driving conditions throughout the city. State Highway 1, the primary road that divides Auckland, was partially stopped on Friday night by transportation authorities.
Authorities urged people in flood-prone areas to be ready in case they had to evacuate after video of some locations showed waist-deep water.
Water pouring into residences was seen on camera by lawmaker Ricardo Menéndez and released online. He wrote, “We just had to leave our house as the water was rising quickly and aggressively.”
Over 1,000 calls for assistance, according to Fire and Emergency New Zealand, although many of them came from people whose homes were flooded. Callers were being asked to free up their lines so that those in urgent danger could speak.
Some flights were either delayed or canceled as a result of the unseasonably warm weather.
After an inbound aircraft damaged the runway lighting, Auckland Airport announced that it has scaled back its runway operations.
The airport stated on Twitter that “this is primarily hurting international arrivals and departures as well as larger planes traveling domestically.” “Our maintenance crew is on the scene and is diligently repairing the damage,”
Wayne Brown, the mayor of Auckland, said on Radio New Zealand “The rain needs to stop. That is the fundamental problem.
