{"id":389005,"date":"2026-04-20T16:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/389005\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T16:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T16:58:12","slug":"woman-87-lifted-into-cupboard-to-escape-floodwaters-in-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/389005\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman, 87, lifted into cupboard to escape floodwaters in home"},"content":{"rendered":"

An 87-year-old woman was forced to take shelter high in a cupboard as her Berhampore home was inundated with floodwater early this morning.<\/p>\n

Gavin Naftel told 1News he was in Johnsonville when he received a call from his sister-in-law around 4am, who said the home was flooded and they couldn’t get out.<\/p>\n

Due to the speed of the rising waters, the sister-in-law assisted the older woman into a cupboard above a wardrobe, while she was forced to tread water for at least half-an-hour.<\/p>\n

Naftel said when he arrived, he was able to swim through the back door with a police officer to rescue his sister-in-law and the dog, while firefighters came to the aid of his sister-in-law.<\/p>\n

Follow our live updates of the Wellington weather here<\/a><\/p>\n

The two women were wet and cold, with his mother-in-law taken to hospital for a check-up.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s great to know they are safe,” Naftel said.<\/p>\n

“Nature\u2019s a cruel thing at times. [We] managed, to get them out in time, which is the main thing. Credit to my sister-in-law for managing to get her up somewhere high and safe \u2013 to save her life really.”<\/p>\n

He said they felt fortunate they were aware on the situation in time to get themselves to safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin half an hour, it\u2019s risen from ground level to 2m deep within the house.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were just lucky they woke up in time and were able to get high enough from the water.” <\/p>\n

\"CJ<\/p>\n

CJ Kochar at his damaged Brooklyn flat (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Also in the south of Wellington, a man says he’s grateful no-one was hurt after his flat was badly damaged by a landslip early this morning, amid the deluge that swamped parts of the city.<\/p>\n

CJ Kochar was in his room in Brooklyn when he heard a rumbling sound around 5am. He could also hear heavy rain and rocks hitting the roof.<\/p>\n

Then, he noticed cracks on the wall. He managed to get to safety as a whole wall was pushed in.<\/p>\n

\"Damage<\/p>\n

Damage to a property in Brooklyn, Wellington (Source: CJ Kochar)<\/p>\n

He said the situation left him “totally scared”.<\/p>\n

“It was like some kind of monster was outside and trying to come in.”<\/p>\n

Kochar and his flatmates were now looking for a new place to live, but he said the main thing was no-one was hurt.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is alive and nothing happened to anyone.” <\/p>\n

Vehicles float down Wellington streets as flash flooding hits, watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An 87-year-old woman was forced to take shelter high in a cupboard as her Berhampore home was inundated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69,6563,3393,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-389005","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-storms","13":"tag-weather-news","14":"tag-wellington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}