A body found in a crashed car near Napier yesterday has been formally identified as missing motorist Alex Binns, police say.

Alex Binns turns 70 on Wednesday but instead of celebrating, his family are pleading for help to find him.

Quick-witted rescuers scrawled a line in the beach to point others to the site of a helicopter crash.

In a scene straight out of a desert island castaway story, a line scrawled in the beach pointed rescuers to a helicopter crash in the sea near Whangarei today, helping save a pilot's life.

A 23-year-old man has been taken to hospital after being pulled from the sea after his helicopter crashed off the Northland coast. He was the pilot and only occupant of the chopper and escaped with minor injuries.

An air search has started off the Northland coast after reports an aircraft may have crashed into the sea.

Sealing the Pike River mine could see vital evidence lost, the lawyer for the families of those killed says.

A woman clung to the side of a cliff face for eight hours after becoming stranded in rising tides.

A spokesman for the Pike River miners' families says the Prime Minister has been getting false information from the wrong people, and a decision to halt the recovery effort was rushed.

Police have charged missing diver Colin Smithies with wasting police time after a $50,000 two-day search for him near Porirua turned out to be pointless - as he had hitchhiked to Hawkes Bay.

Police are expected to this afternoon reveal details of why a diver reported to a Hawkes Bay police station after an extensive two-day search for him near Porirua.

Flooding has left a valley to the west of Brisbane looking like a war zone, with Australian troops steeling themselves for expected ‘terrible outcomes’ as they move into the devastated area.

The threat of looting is making Queensland flood victims reluctant to evacuate their properties.

Brisbane's mayor has called on residents to 'put the shoulder to the wheel' and help clean up.

The frightening power of the brown surge heading towards Moreton Bay leaves no mistake about the devastation that this flood has done.

Find out what people are saying about the Queensland floods in social media.

The Brisbane River peaked at 4.6m this morning with residents warned there would be shocking scenes of devastation.

A flood survivor has described trying to grab people fighting for their lives only to find they were bodies in turbulent water.

The death toll from flooding in the Toowoomba region has risen to 12 with the discovery of two more bodies, while the full impact of the flood terror is now reaching the town of Grantham, where up to 30 could be dead.

The diver missing for two days near Titahi Bay has been found - after walking into a police station in Hawke's Bay.