A woman who was swept to her death in a flood-swollen Bay of Islands river was a 28-year-old mother from Wellington.

Rescuers trying to save people at a house party deluged by floodwaters were abused by those they were trying to help.

Auckland motorists travelling on low lying sections of the city's motorway network tonight are being warned to beware of flooding due to a king tide and strong winds.

Elderly dementia patients have been evacuated from their Canterbury rest home after it was flooded overnight in a torrential rainstorm.

Residents in the South Island have woken up to flooding in the region, with a warning the worst is yet to come for Auckland today.

Floodwaters triggered more than 2,000 landslides across much of the Balkans on Sunday, laying waste to entire towns and villages and disturbing land mines left over from the region’s 1990s war, along with warning signs that marked the unexploded devices.

Scientists have issued a new warning to the world’s coastal megacities that the threat from subsiding land is a more immediate problem than rising sea levels caused by global warming.

A woman has described her dramatic escape from her submerged car after it was swept off the road by raging floodwaters.

More than 50,000 people have been affected by the flash floods that have devastated the capital and a number of provinces of the Solomon Islands.

The condition of about 12,000 people crammed into Solomon Islands evacuation centres is of grave concern, says a Unicef sanitation specialist.

NZ is sending a Hercules with emergency relief to the Solomon Islands, after thousands of people in and around the capital Honiara were left homeless by flash flooding.

A strong 6.0-magnitude earthquake has struck the Solomon Islands, the US Geological Survey said, but there were no immediate reports of damage.

A downpour in Auckland caused some surface flooding in the city centre, causing surface flooding and road closures after the storm.

Heavy rain has flooded houses in Auckland and Waikato and blocked a road tonight.

'We're obviously going to review the sandbagging issue,' says Christchurch's mayor amid residents' complaints the council failed to handle yesterday's floods.

Clarendon Terrace resident Nicholas Wilson shows us his flooded street and Hamish Wright from Construction Contracting Limited discusses protecting homes in the community from further flooding.

Flood waters take over Christchurch suburbs.

Mick Dummer got a nasty shock when he arrived at work.

Travellers are being urged to avoid the east coast of the Coromandel as heavy rain has brought flooding to many coastal communities, police say.

A winter storm is causing serious flooding in southern England. Thousands of people are without power on Christmas Day. Some roads are also closed due to flooding. Two dozen motorists were rescued from their vehicles overnight.

A brief deluge yesterday had central Dunedin on standby again as the mop-up continues from a storm on Monday that overwhelmed the city's stormwater system.

A flash storm that dropped hail stones the size of golf balls caught residents near Ashburton off guard last night.

Parts of Dunedin were flooded late yesterday afternoon when a thunderstorm struck, causing havoc for some central-city businesses.

The cost of extreme weather events in New Zealand this year is likely to top $100 million, the Insurance Council says.