Packing winds of up to 320km, the killer tornado that laid waste to Oklahoma on Monday grasped at the deadliest end of the Enhanced Fujita scale.

Several tornadoes that touched down in Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa were part of a massive, northeastward-moving storm system that stretched from Texas to Minnesota, leaving at least six people dead, dozens injured and hundreds homeless.

Drought relief provisions for farmers will continue until the end of September, the Government said.

The worst drought in 40 years could cost the West Coast tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue, a leading West Coast farmer warns.

Every time Steve Morris takes his two young daughters to the local beach, signs of tsunami danger surround him.

As one of the world's most tsunami-threatened countries, New Zealand faces the triple menace of distant-source tsunami, regional tsunami and local-source tsunami.

Insurance giant Tower must pay out a Christchurch couple for a like-for-like replacement on another site, after their home was damaged in the earthquakes.

New Zealand is moving by 4cm a year, new satellite surveys have revealed, as tectonic forces deform the land surface by stretching, slimming and sliding it southward.

As they did on the afternoon of March 17, tens of thousands of Aucklanders take to Facebook and Twitter to express their amazement that their seemingly quake-free city has had a rumble.

Panicked Aucklanders have been snapping up emergency kits in the wake of last Sunday's earthquakes.

More than 6400 people in the remote Santa Cruz Islands in Temotu Province, 500km east of Honiara in the Solomon Islands, are coming to terms with devastation and loss wrought by the double disaster of an earthquake and tsunami last month.

Damaged chimneys and homeless people are likely to lead to more abandoned red zone properties going up in flames this winter, firefighters fear.

The 1888 Gothic revival presbytery beside St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral in Auckland CBD is an earthquake-prone building.

When Queen St's Imperial Laneway got its $15 million makeover a couple of years ago, owners poured $4 million into seismic strengthening.

Our building stock could look radically different in the next few years as owners and architects introduce new seismic elements, an expert says.

Cantabrians would be helped into driving post-earthquake recovery if Labour returned to Government, party leader David Shearer vowed today.

Challenging a $337,000 payout to repair a Christchurch home by lodging a $900,000 claim means the case will be "impossible to resolve", a court heard today.