A fisherman who died after being swept down the Motu River has been identified as 41-year-old Benjamin Robert Tekira from Waimana, near Whakatane.

Two 15-year-old girls are being hailed as heroes after going to the rescue of men caught in a rip and near drowning at a Northland beach.

An unconscious 61-year-old diabetic man was believed to have been lying on a Dunedin park bench for a day and a night before he died.

The body of a 41-year-old man was found last night after he was swept away while trying to cross an East Coast river earlier in the day.

The body of a man has been found, hours after he was swept away at the Motu rivermouth near Whakatane today.

An Eastern Bay father and his 8-year-old son had to be winched to safety when large waves trapped the pair on rocks near the Whakatane Heads.

Holidaymakers driving home have been urged by police to "take it easy'' on the roads and plan the return journey to ensure they get home in one piece.

Neighbours say the 42-year-old was burned in her Whakatu house, 5km north of Hastings, after a day-long domestic dispute on Christmas Day.

Fatal accidents, breakdowns and huge traffic backlogs have plagued the first four days of the official Christmas road toll period.

Neighbours heard screams that "somebody was on fire" before emergency services discovered a badly burned couple on Christmas Day.

TV blogger Paul Casserly looks back at 60 years of safety films warning of all the ways to die in New Zealand.

'Atrocious conditions' were partially to blame for a horror crash in Marlborough this afternoon, which killed two tourists.

A hoax caller who rang 111 and said someone had drowned at Rotorua's Tikitapu (Blue Lake) put emergency services at risk as they rushed to the scene.

A 38-year-old man was killed when he was thrown into Ahuriri Lagoon in a head-on collision between two trucks on the Hawkes Bay expressway.