Police are at a home this evening following the death. They were supporting the family of the child and investigating the death on behalf of the coroner.

Two people are dead and five others have been injured in a two-car smash near Twizel.

Two people are dead and five others have been injured in a two-car smash near Twizel in the South Island tonight.

A Fire Service spokesman said firefighters from Invercargill Station were called to a house fire in Ettrick St at 5.40pm.

Police are after a "short, tubby" middle-aged man who indecently assaulted a 14-year-old girl near a school today.

An Otago father spent an hour in the sea preventing a jet ski, with two distraught children on board, from smashing into rocks after its battery went flat.

A Herald investigation into the hidden toll of the Christchurch earthquakes has sparked calls for research into the correlation between suicides and the quakes.

Police were called out to a rest home on Harewood road around 6pm, after a 62-year-old man attacked staff with a walking frame.

A fuel tanker driver escaped without major injuries after his vehicle rolled in Southland this morning.

Police said the 73-year-old man was injured at the car park of Mt Nicholas Station, near Queenstown.

"We're just getting prepared for a breakfast trade," says publican. "We've already got two eggs and a sausage on a plate, we don't need anymore."

A train has derailed in Christchurch near Moorhouse Ave and is causing traffic to back up.

A Blenheim man is now facing serious charges after allegedly "following" in his car police who had earlier served him a warning.

A raging solar storm has given way to a glorious array of lights in the skies above the lower South Island.

The collapse of a Castle St balcony earlier this year was due to overloading, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has found.

GeoNet's initial reports, suggested it was a strong 4.5 quake that struck seven kilometres deep, 50 kilometres to the north-west of the southern town just before midday.

Dog that savaged heavily pregnant Christchurch woman went "ballistic" after a male dog came to mate with it, says neighbour who stopped the attack.

Christchurch mother claims her daughter's high school isn't doing enough to stop bullying.

A 30-year-old man has been given a pre-charge warning from police after he allegedly assaulted a parking warden in central Dunedin.

A 2-year-old boy was taken to Christchurch Hospital after being attacked by a pitbull on Friday.

A teenage boy is charged with the manslaughter of an Invercargill man after an early-morning incident on Saturday.

Two people, one a woman, arrived at a Blackball home with bats and smashed the windows.

A 16-year-old boy was airlifted to Nelson Hospital this afternoon after falling and seriously injuring his leg while motorcross riding.

Three people are in a serious condition in Dunedin Hospital after a car ploughed into parked car on Brockville Rd this afternoon.

Fire services are searching for a person in a South Island property that had caught fire after they received reports the home was inhabited.

A driver was thrown several metres from his car after colliding with a four wheel drive in Christchurch this afternoon.

Police are investigating after a person woke to find a man in their Alexandra Heights Motel room early this morning.

Laurence Aberhart has been photographing WW1 memorials that include a single figure, across New Zealand and Australia, for more than three decades.

Western regions of the South Island could be in for some extremely stormy weather later today with squally thunderstorms and a chance of tornadoes.

Hefty $300 fines will now be issued to the company when their vehicles displaying offensive slogans are seen in Queenstown.