A Taranaki grandmother says she was shoved to the ground and handcuffed by police after she objected to being evacuated due to flooding.

Millions of dollars in Government relief will be pumped into the flood-ravaged lower North Island, as authorities warn it could take weeks to clean up.

Whanganui holiday park owners are now wading through mud after the river nearby broke its banks.

It was a paramedic's "horror story" - trying to get a woman apparently in labour to hospital in the middle of a flood.

Flooding caused road and bridge closures, cut power to homes and forced people to spend night in emergency accommodation or with friends and family.

More than 400 people were evacuated from flood-hit homes in lower North Island towns across Taranaki, Horowhenua, Manawatu, Rangitikei and Whanganui over the weekend.

The Whanganui River has burst its banks, and the public are being warned to stay away from the river.

Heavy rain has kept Hokitika residents awake through the night with serious flooding causing many people, including 20 retirement home residents, to be evacuated.

A young Dunedin family has been left with nowhere to go after being told to leave their flood-damaged property.

The deaths of five people have served as a tragic reminder of the danger of crossing flooded roads as Queensland was battered by storms.

A fifth person has died as a result of an extreme downpour and flash flooding in southeast Queensland.

Two flood-damaged police cars were written off in one year, with more than $71,991 being spent on repairing vehicles in the Northland police fleet.

Flooding is causing problems throughout Wellington this morning, with the Fire Service called to 30 incidents of flooding in the last two hours.

Rescuers are struggling to get help to the tens of thousands of people affected by Malaysia's worst flooding in decades as angry victims accused the Government of being slow in its response.

A year ago, Typhoon Haiyan created a series of storm surges that left several thousand people dead and around four million homeless.

Hundreds of children attending a church camp in San Bernardino are among thousands of people trapped.

The 7-year-old son of the woman who died in a flood-swollen Northland river is living with his great-grandparents, as he comes to terms with losing his mum.

Auckland lines company Vector says it is still assessing the financial cost of last week's storm.

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.

Wild weather continues to hit the country, flooding areas of Blenheim as remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Ita pass through the South Island.