Bay Of Plenty residents bracing themselves for more rain

Residents of flood ravaged Tauranga are still in "recovery mode", but are bracing themselves for more rain expected over the weekend.

"We're pretty much still in recovery mode, and we've heard there's more rain coming, unfortunately, but hopefully that doesn't come to much," Tauranga City Council spokeswoman Alison Liddle said.

The hardest hit area in the region Matata/Edgecumbe, west of Whakatane, is still under a state of emergency and police will be patrolling the area to stop looters.

More than 250 Matata residents have been evacuated since the flood struck on Wednesday.

Up to 20 houses were destroyed with another 50 suffering minimal to substantial damage.

A total of 297 people had registered as evacuees with the welfare centre at Whakatane War Memorial and 121 stayed at the hall last night.

The Earthquake Commission said in a statement this afternoon that 300 claims totalling $8 million had so far been received.

Claims were for landslip damage to homes and flood and storm damage to land.

The final bill is expected to run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

In Tauranga, a city recovery team has been established, with insurance assessors and engineers checking properties to establish whether or not evacuees could return to them.

Team leader Terry Wynyard said an estimated 15 homes would get a category one rating, meaning they were too dangerous to enter.

Over 60 properties would be assessed over the next two or three days, he said.

Whakatane District Council spokeswoman Mary Hermanson said the attitudes of Matata locals was "amazing" even though more than half of the residents needed to be evacuated from their homes.

"They're pretty devastated, but it's a very tight community. I mean they really are quite inspiring people."

Ms Hermanson said they had set up a welfare centre at Matata, which will be opening at 10.00am today, and will be manned by people from all the different support agencies.

"The Council staff are all out working this morning with inspectors. The housing inspections have been done and we're trying to get the insurance companies in so that people can start cleaning up."

Evacuated locals had stayed in the Town Hall overnight, and today arrangements would be made for where they can stay for the long term, she said.

She expected the state of emergency would be lifted at 9.00am on Monday.

A joint mayoral relief fund has been set up for the Whakatane, Tauranga and Western Bay of Plenty districts and donations can be made at National and BNZ banks.

- NZPA