These amazing images show the scale of yesterday's flooding.
In the Bay of Plenty town of Edgecumbe, hundreds of homes are under water and thousands of residents have been evacuated after the Rangitaiki River burst its banks.
Defence Force personnel in unimogs and rescuers in jet boats led the mass evacuation in what the mayor described as a ''one-in-500-years'' event.
The photos also show the flooding of the Kaituna River and the Rangitaiki upstream at Galatea.