Ashburton Police are warning the public to take extreme care on the roads in the Canterbury region due to reports of black ice.

Great fiestas, beaches and eateries abound, says Elisabeth Easther.

Police are expecting a quieter morning in Canterbury with less ice to make the roads treacherous.

The young woman who died yesterday when her vehicle skidded out of control on black ice and hit a school bus has been named.

One person has died on the roads in Canterbury this morning, with about 25 crashes occurring since 6am.

New Zealand has nearly shuddered itself to the MetService's record books after the Canterbury high country plummeted to -20 degrees overnight.

A build-up of snow and ice on lines, as well as tree branches being weighed down on lines, caused outages to around 4700 customers around the western areas of the Canterbury Plains yesterday.

A quantity of chemicals has been stolen from University of Canterbury's chemistry department -- including some which could be used to manufacture illegal drugs.

Two minor earthquakes hit central parts of both main islands today.

The digger driver killed in a quarry landslide will be farewelled on Monday.

A mentally-handicapped man, with the mental age of a 9-year-old, was accidentally strangled to death after becoming entangled in electrical bed wires.

The full extent of illegal quarrying is not known after it was revealed the latest person to be killed was operating without a safety certificate.

Police have recovered the body of digger driver Murray Taylor from the more than 1500 tonnes of rubble that buried him in a mammoth landslide.

Digger driver Murray Taylor, who was buried in a mammoth quarry landslide, has been remembered as a great bloke after hopes of finding him alive faded yesterday.

The digger driver buried under 1000 tonnes of rubble has been named as Murray Taylor.

A person is dead and another seriously injured after a crash in south Canterbury this afternoon.

There's no shortage of options for keen skiers in the South Island, writes Jane Jeffries.

A Canterbury rugby league legend, known at his club simply as ‘The Godfather’, has died suddenly during a training session on the eve of his 300th and final match.

The country’s top road cop is lamenting the deaths of five people over the Queen’s Birthday holiday weekend, including a 5-year-old boy who died in hospital yesterday.

A Christchurch pedestrian has been taken to hospital after she was knocked down by a vehicle in the central city this morning.

It took just eight seconds to bring down the former police station in Christchurch. Watch video of the controlled implosion here.

A female motorbike passenger has died after she was knocked into the path of an oncoming car, and then flung underneath a van in Canterbury today.

One farmer is using humour to help get him through the tough conditions brought on by drought in North Canterbury.

Police have identified the human remains found on Aoraki-Mt Cook this year as a climber who went missing more than 40 years ago.