Motorists who spent a freezing night in their snow-trapped cars on the Napier-Taupo Highway are rescued.

Members of Parliament are working alongside members of the public as a huge international relief effort gets under way in Samoa and Tonga.

Authorities have made contact with three Australians who had been unaccounted for in the earthquake-ravaged Indonesian city of Padang, but concerns remain for four others who still have not been in touch with officials.

When I heard John Glennie's "Gidday Blossom" on the phone this week, I knew nothing had changed.

Rescue workers had to pull a badly injured woman from the wreckage of a Great Barrier Airlines plane that crashed yesterday.

The 18-year-old killed when he fell through an ice shelf loved the outdoors and planned to be an environmental engineer.

An Auckland student missing after falling through an ice shelf on a South Island mountain is named.

When 5-year-old Max Christie slipped out of sight 90 metres down a rocky Whakapapa cliff his parents feared they wouldn't find him alive.

Just a day after a man's nasty 60m tumble, an Australian man is lucky to be alive after a big fall in the same area.

An Auckland climber fell "like a rag doll" after slipping while decending from Mt Ruapehu's Dome Summit.

Alex Macdonald says he was kept in Tongan police custody for five days, accused of killing his skipper.

Missing Victorian politician found alive after mountain rescue operation.