Heavy rain has left Gisborne virtually cut off, with surface flooding closing roads and forcing the evacuation of homes.

Heavy rain is lashing the North Island's East Coast, leaving dozens of homes without power and closing rural schools and roads.

Schools have closed, houses are without power and homes have been evacuated as rain continues to lash the Gisborne region.

The icy southerly sweeping up the North Island has brought snow to the hills around Waikato and the Bay of Plenty and in some paddocks.

Official documents show the Government did not consider the environment when awarding an East Cape off shore oil exploration permit.

Jessica and Damon Ward today appealed for people to take five minutes to check all around their properties in case their "curious little boy" had got lost and taken shelter.

A police dive squad is again scouring the Waimata River as the search for missing four-year-old Gisborne boy Lucas Ward enters its third day.

The frantic mother of a Gisborne preschooler was last night clinging to the hope her boy is alive, more than 40 hours after he vanished.

Gisborne residents are being urged to search their properties for Lucas Ward, 4.

The police dive squad is searching a Gisborne river close to the home where a four-year-old boy disappeared yesterday.

Respected Ngati Porou kaumatua and historian, Dr Te Kapunga Matemoana Dewes, known as 'Koro', has died.

Lucas Ward's family 'just turned around and he wasn't there', police say. Photo / NZPA

A man was shot in the face and 24 arrests made after a violent gang brawl in the Hawke's Bay town of Wairoa this morning.

A man arrested during a major police drugs operation offended from his home and should forfeit it, the Crown says.