A child asleep on a couch floating in the water. Two thousand passengers trapped in a flooded airport. Hundreds of people evacuated from their homes.

The morning after the worst downpour since record-keeping began for Auckland, New Zealand¡¯s largest city, residents were grappling with the scale of the damage after flash flooding swept through Friday night.

Late Saturday morning, Chris Hipkins, New Zealand¡¯s new prime minister, flew over the city in the cockpit of a military plane from Wellington, the capital, to assess the damage from the air. An earlier departure had been delayed by bad weather.