New Zealand declares state of emergency in Wellington as floods hit

New Zealand has declared a state of emergency in its capital city Wellington as torrential rain and flash flooding drenched the country's North Island.Footage online shows vehicles submerged, trees uprooted and houses hit by landslides. Wellington received a record 77mm (3in) of rain in less than an hour on Monday, said mayor Andrew Little.Local authorities advised residents to hunker down, with rain forecast for the next day and a half. Some flights at Wellington Airport have been cancelled and several schools have shut their campuses.More than a dozen people have been evacuated while a 60-year-old man in the Karori suburb has been reported missing. No fatalities have been reported so far.This series of flash floods comes less than a week after Cyclone Vaianu swept through the North Island last weekend.Research over the years have shown that climate change has made extreme weather events, including floods, more common and more intense around the world."The wild weather continues. We've had flooding, slips and evacuations... The flooding has been strong enough to move cars, and many manhole covers have been lifted," Little said in a video published on his Facebook page.In the suburb of Kingston, a resident told Radio New Zealand (RNZ) that he had tried to escape on the back of his neighbour's motorbike after a landslide buried a nearby road in the early hours of Monday.