Employers need to be flexible and allow staff to tend to their families and properties in the wake of the Port Hills fire.

Christchurch and Japanese academics are developing new drone technologies that would be able to locate people buried in wreckage following natural disasters.

Kiwi scientists could soon have a new way to safely get an up-close look at erupting volcanoes: send in the drone.

Suncorp Group's New Zealand insurance units posted a 57 per cent decline in first-half profit.

There was nothing unusual about the late-night 5.1 quake that shook Marlborough and the lower North Island on Wednesday, says a scientist.

International scientists have claimed the 7.8 Kaikoura quake has raised the potential threat of another large NZ event - but a Kiwi scientist says that's unlikely.

A woman took shelter in a bathtub and the tornado lifted the tub out of the home and deposited it in the woods - she still survived.

Four quakes of magnitude 5.2 and higher struck near the hill town of Amatrice, 100km northeast of Rome.

A West Coast Civil Defence warning of a possible big earthquake on the Coast was a "misinterpretation of the facts" caused by lack of training and understanding, says an independent report.

Steve Braunias looks back on a year of thinking dangerously.

A 24-year-old man has been charged with the burglary of a Christchurch home during the tsunami evacuation early on November 14.

Scientists are still trying to understand the strange tsunami activity that occurred in last month's 7.8 Kaikoura Earthquake - and have called upon people to help them.

Quake ravaged Kaikoura is doing its best to embrace the Christmas spirit.

When Kaikoura locals told visiting PM Bill English the Govt effort was "piss poor" in the quake-strewn region, Gerry Brownlee let them have it.

School leavers remarkably unaffected by earthquakes, surprising research finds.

The Earthquake Commission and the Insurance Council of New Zealand have struck a deal to stop double ups on assessing property.

A video explaining what causes tornadoes.

The Govtt will re-double its promotion of the "Alpine Pacific Triangle" to get tourists back to quake-hit Kaikoura, Hanmer and Christchurch.

The earthquake-stricken Reading Cinema carpark building in central Wellington will be demolished.

Three weeks on from the 7.8 Kaikoura quake, companies are struggling.

A new satellite-based tool published by Landcare Research has provided one of the clearest views yet of what changes last month's 7.8 Kaikoura Earthquake wrought on the landscape.

Wellington City Council says they will not be held to an earlier plan to recheck buildings after a magnitude 5 or above tremor.

Many Kiwis affected by the 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake will need "significant ongoing psychological support", the PM's chief science adviser says.

National MP Paul Foster-Bell has spoken out for the first time about his sexuality in response to Brian Tamaki linking homosexuality to earthquakes.

An Icelandic volcano brought much of the world's air travel to a halt. And then it brought the world to Iceland.

There are now four buildings at Wellington's CentrePort which could be demolished following the 7.8 magnitude earthquake.

"Gobsmacking" drone footage has captured an up-close view of a massive canyon created near Mt Lyford by this month's 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake.

INTERACTIVE: Dams created by landslides in this month's 7.8 quake have been pin-pointed on a detailed new map created by GNS Science and Environment Canterbury.

COMMENT: I had never, for one second, consciously entertained the idea that human extinction was conceivable in the near term.

Don't expect to be given an early warning of an approaching quake like they get in Japan.