Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says the true extent of devastation and loss of Cyclone Gabrielle becomes clearer every day, with 11 confirmed dead and crops across Hawkes’ Bay and Tairawhiti badly damaged, many completely destroyed.

Hipkins said New Zealand had failed to invest enough in infrastructure “and this has to change”. The country had to build back better, so some tough calls had to made “and I’m absolutely committed to doing that.”

He was no longer going to the Pacific Forum, as he believed he needed to stay in New Zealand. Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni would go in his place.

Hipkins said 28,000 homes, mostly in Napier and Hastings, remained without power in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will give an update on the Cyclone Gabrielle response at 5.30pm today.

He will be joined by the acting director of the National Emergency Management Agency, Stefan Weir. It will be Hipkins’ first briefing on the cyclone since Friday.

The briefing comes as the death toll from the cyclone continues to mount. Eleven people are now confirmed to have died in the cyclone. Police have “grave concerns” for 11 more.

This afternoon the police’s Eastern District Commander Superintendent Jeanette Park said more than 3000 people have been found, but there were more than 6000 reports of people who cannot be contacted.

Park also made a plea to people taking advantage of the floods to loot shops and homes.

“It’s cruel, people shouldn’t be doing that,” Park said.

Police Minister Stuart Nash, who is also Napier’s electorate MP, said that if Park needed greater resourcing to keep the peace, she would get it.

“The district commander has the ability to pull in as many resources as she sees fit,” Nash said.

“There’s over 100 more police officers on the ground to support the effort, if the district commander wants more police, she will get more police.”

Nash said he had heard reports of “a certain gang” creating havoc.

“What I would say to that is, ‘pull your head in - this is not the time for that sort of behaviour’,” Nash said.

“What I would say to the gang leaders in the city is ‘show some leadership - get your guys out of the cars and out of these communities because this is not the time for that sort of behaviour’”.

Hipkins will be speaking ahead of tomorrow’s Cabinet meeting, the first since the destruction of Gabrielle was laid bare.

The Government is expected to roll out further support for businesses following that meeting.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson told Q+A with Jack Tame that the cyclone was “the biggest weather event this century” and that it would have a “multi-billion dollar price tag”.

He hinted at “sector-by-sector” support for industries hit by the floods.

Robertson told reporters today he would be “taking stock with all the different ministers who have been here [to the Hawke’s Bay]” ahead of making decisions about what sort of support to roll out.

“You’ll see a continual evolution of the response. There will be more support and more funding where it is needed immediately and then some planning around how we manage our process from here,” Robertson said.

“I expect it will roll out over a number of weeks. It won’t just be a one off.”

Robertson said he was “reassessing” this year’s Budget in light of the storm. he opened the door to changing the amount of overall spending in the Budget if necessary.

“That’s what we’re reassessing now. You can imagine the pressure that responding to a massive event like this will have,” Robertson said.

“We save for a rainy day, we happen to be having a lot of them at the moment and we will respond,” he said.