A Fire Service has disagreed strongly with some earlier witnesses at the CTV inquest that there was confusion over leadership on February 22 last year.

Search and rescue units were told to stop scouring the collapsed CTV Building's rubble for survivors within 24 hours of it coming down.

A coroner's inquest today heard from a senior search and rescue expert who described the "chaos" at the disaster site when he arrived two hours after the building's collapse.

An Australian tramper with a serious lower leg injury was lifted off the Motatapu Track near Wanaka late on Tuesday afternoon.

A five-year-old autistic boy was found safe and well after a frantic search in Rimutaka Forest Park yesterday.

Having been faced with the prospect of drinking his own urine to stay alive while lost in the Ureweras, a bacon and egg breakfast never tasted so good for Desmond Kuik.

The wife of a hunter found after three days lost in the Ureweras was last night able to tell their three young children: "Papa is coming home."

A hunter drank puddle water to slake his thirst and snuggled up to his pig dogs to stay warm after getting lost in a rugged area south of Dunedin for more than 24 hours.

The search continues for a Tauranga man missing since the stolen dinghy he and four others were in capsized in heavy seas.