Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police have swarmed a Christchurch street after a reported home invasion where several people were injured.

A reporter on the scene at Hoani Street in Northcote said there were multiple police cars and ambulances on the road just before 10pm on Wednesday.

The reporter was told by police at the scene there had been reports of shots being fired, however this is yet to be confirmed.

RNZ understands the incident is a reported home invasion and that several people are injured.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Banks Peninsula farmers and businesses are counting the cost of devastating flooding that swamped paddocks and swept through Little River.

The peninsula remained under a state of emergency although State Highway 75 from Christchurch to Akaroa reopened on Wednesday afternoon and telecommunications were restored after widespread outages.

About 120 properties remained without power and at least 15 local roads were closed because of slips and flooding.

Kinloch farmer Tom Power said the “mental” rain caused the worst flooding he had ever seen.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It was predicted to be 100 millimetres or so and we ended up tipping out 430 millimetres in this catchment. It was chaos,” he said.

“I’ve never seen anything through Little River like that before and even up Okuti Valley, properties up there. It’s so widespread, it’s unbelievable.”

Power was dealing with stock losses as paddocks remained under water, with troughs and fences swept away and debris strewn across the property.

“We moved a lot of stock away to traditionally high areas that we’ve never seen go under water. We spent hours doing that beforehand and we were prepared for a lot of it, it was just the severity,” he said.

“We’re still trying to get our head around what the damage is, to be fair, until the water goes away you don’t really know.

“People’s livelihoods have been well and truly affected by this, which is a crying shame.”

In Little River, Déjà New Preloved Goods owner Lisa Ashfield had cleared mud and silt from her shop with the help of firefighters – the second time her business had flooded in 12 months.

“I imagine this is probably the end of the shop,” she said.

“All of my furniture, my bookshelves, my storage units, people’s home-made jewellery, toys, books, clothes, furniture. Everything is just a mudbath,” she said.

“I was flooded in May last year, about 300 millimetres, over the top of your gumboots kind of level. This flood, unfortunately, was thigh-deep. All the preparation we did on Monday, raising everything off the floor, just wasn’t high enough,” she said.

Ashfield was now sorting through stock to work out what to throw in a skip.

Little River Cafe & Store owner Cameron Gordon also spent the day shovelling mud and silt from the building after water gushed in on Tuesday.

He said food from the chiller had to be thrown away and fridges and freezers would need replacing but he hoped to open the store by the end of the day and the cafe by the weekend.

Gordon was heartened by the support of locals who were helping to clean up the mess.

“They’re pretty keen to get the shop back going and get us up and running again. We got a lot of calls, a lot of messages overnight with people offering help, a lot of tools brought down, water blasters, squeegees and brooms and random people I haven’t met before. It’s great,” he said.

Gordon said the cafe had flooded five times, most recently last May when a foot of water washed through some businesses, but he had never seen flooding so bad in his 20 years living in the settlement.

He said water in Little River drained away quickly once Lake Forsyth was opened to the sea on Tuesday afternoon.

“If it was opened before this I think we would have had a lot less damage and probably a lower level through the building,” he said.

“[The council] seem to have their rules and their guidelines about how they monitor all that but it doesn’t seem to work for us. It seems to be the same story every year, with the same excuses every year as well.”

Living Streams Community Nursery co-ordinator Nicky Steinmetz said raging floodwaters had left a layer of silt over the plants, leaving a months-long clean-up job.

“Most of our volunteers will be really upset about what they see. It’s the small seedlings that will be most impacted, rather than the bigger plants. We’ll be able to wash those down, but it’s going to take forever,” she said.

Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell and Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger visited Little River on Wednesday.

Mitchell told RNZ the flooding was worse than in May 2025.

“They’re in the middle of their summer season so we’ve got to do everything we can to support them and get them back on their feet as quickly as we can,” he said.

Boil water notices remained in place for Little River and Wainui.

Mauger said the water supply in Wainui was “absolute toast”.

The council had sent Starlink WiFi devices to Akaroa and Wainui, although Chorus found and fixed a damaged fibre cable on a bridge that restored cell tower connections on Wednesday afternoon.

Students on two school trips who were stuck at Wainui and Ōnuku Marae had returned home.

Provisional figures from Earth Sciences New Zealand showed 243 millimetres of rain was recorded at its site in Akaroa in the 24 hours to 9am on Tuesday morning.

That was the highest 24-hour rainfall total for Akaroa in the month of February since records began in 1977, the organisation said.

Earth Sciences said Akaroa had received 316 millimetres of rain so far this month, making it the wettest February on record.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Police have swarmed a Christchurch street after a reported home invasion where several people were injured.

A reporter on the scene at Hoani Street in Northcote said there were multiple police cars and ambulances on the road.

The reporter was told by police at the scene there had been reports of shots being fired, however this is yet to be confirmed.

RNZ understands the incident is a reported home invasion and that several people are injured.

Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Wellington family has been forced out of their home after a large branch flattened their roof in this week’s vicious storm.

William Ray, an RNZ employee and Johnsonville resident, said his family were lucky to leave when they did, with the branch now precariously leaning against his house.

Ray said his neighbours have five big macrocarpa trees standing at the property’s boundary, and about six branches snapped in fierce winds on Sunday night or Monday morning.

The winds that struck Wellington were the strongest in a decade, tearing down power lines down across paddocks, roads, and over people’s cars and houses.

Ray said throughout the night he heard the branches overhanging his roof “smacking down” against the house.

“It was like having a machine gun constantly banging against the roof, and I was just lying awake, getting more and more nervous.”

He moved his wife and newborn into the lounge, fearing damage. Thirty minutes later, one massive branch came down.

“There was just this huge crash when it hit the house, the whole house shook.”

Ray said he considered escaping the house with his family during the night, but looked outside to see branches lying either side of the car, realising it would be too dangerous to even run to the car.

Waking on the Monday morning Ray found the big branch had flattened the roof over the bedroom, smashing up eaves on one side, and ripping off all the guttering.

Branches were still coming down as Ray inspected the house – including one lying on his front doorstep.

“It very nearly squished me, it was pretty spooky to see.”

An arborist he called in the aftermath inspected the tree and informed Ray the family can’t stay there while it was unstable.

Ray said the family was likely out of their house until Monday, and while the incident had been disruptive with a five-month-old, he was thankful to be able to stay with family.

Insurance would likely cover the damage to the house, though Ray was still trying to confirm what would happen with the macrocarpa trees.

“I don’t really know how things work with tree law, I’ve been doing a lot of tree law googling, recently.

“It’s a shame to see the trees go, they’re lovely, beautiful trees but I’m not prepared to get squished by them.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The head of Wellington’s new water entity says it’s still unclear how its takeover of the barely-functional Moa Point wastewater treatment plant will work.

Tiaki Wai replaces Wellington Water from 1 July, inheriting council-owned water assets including the Moa Point plant.

For two weeks, raw sewage has been spewing into the sea after a massive failure at the facility, which is extensively damaged and cannot treat wastewater.

It’s unclear what happened, and when the plant will be fixed. Officials say they can’t give much information, citing the impending Crown review and insurance processes.

During an “Introduction to Tiaki Wai” briefing to Wellington city councillors on Wednesday afternoon, Tiaki Wai chair Will Peet mentioned Moa Point within the first minute and a half of his address.

“The catastrophic failure of the plant is very significant for us as an organisation,” he said, adding that he looked forward to the Crown review.

“We’re very much supportive of getting some interim reporting as the inquiry progresses, I think we want to hear what we can do, and when we can do it.”

Councillor Ray Chung questioned whether Tiaki Wai would hold off taking over Moa Point “until we’ve solved all the problems”.

But Peet said that had not been top of mind.

“The main job is dealing right now with the response and immediate recovery steps, we’ve got four months to work through the particulars.”

Peet said he was confident Tiaki Wai had the “financial ability to work it through”, and he would continue to work with the mayor and council chief executive on a “sensible approach to that”.

“The main thing is that nobody should win or lose based on a change of ownership,” Peet said.

There was little discussion of Moa Point during the meeting – but at the beginning chairperson Nureddin Abdurahman had reminded councillors it was not the focus.

“Today’s focus is on Tiaki Wai, and if you want to ask any question beyond that, be aware of some of the ministerial inquiries that we have as well.”

The public was excluded for the second half hour of the meeting, because commercially sensitive information was being discussed.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

The government has scrapped plans for a referendum on a four-year Parliamentary term.

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says the coalition agreements secured getting legislation to select committee and no further.

“We won’t be progressing with a referendum on a four-year term at this election,” he said.

“To have a referendum would require passing the Bill through the rest of its stages, with enough time to prepare.

“It’s something that a future government might do, but our priority is progressing legislation that will help fix the basics in law and order.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

A Wanaka-based adventure consultant says she agrees that anyone wanting to climb Mount Everest should have previously summited a 7000 metre high mountain at least once.

Nepal’s government is considering the new rule that would require climbers to have previously summited a 7000m high mountain in Nepal before attempting Everest which is 8848m high.

New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first people known to reach Everest’s summit in 1953.

But recently the mountain has been been in the spotlight over increasing pollution with discarded climbing gear, tents, oxygen canisters and human waste.

And the traffic jams with climbers literally nose to tail at dangerous pinch points as more people attempt Everest.

Wanaka-based Adventure Consultants takes climbers up Everest and its general manager Caroline Ogle said they had strict rules around who they took to Everest but there was a real mix of people on the mountain.

She said there were some operators, such as hers, which had been on the mountain for many years and ran well-resourced expeditions ensuring that only experienced climbers came onto Everest.

“Unfortunately there are a lot of teams that are a) quite large in size and b) their climbers don’t have necessary experience before heading onto the mountain and those factors combined can mean that people do get into trouble and that’s what you end up seeing in the headlines.”

Adventure Consultants advised anyone who wanted to climb Everest to follow a programme which started with a mountaineering course and to ensure they had a lot of climbing experience either in New Zealand, the European mountains or in the United States, she said.

“So building up experience on multiple 6000 to 7000m peaks and ideally another 8000m peak before going on to Everest.”

But often the climbers do not want to put in the preparation, she said.

“And we often see them turning up on other climbing teams who are just happy to accept their money for a place on their expeditions.”

A lot of people including influencers have been documenting their Everest trips on social media in the last few years with some willing to put in the work and some less so, she said.

Ogle said she agreed that climbers wanting to take on Everest should have climbed a 7000 metre peak at least once.

“But the key caveat here is the proposed regulations require climbers to have climbed that 7000m peak in Nepal, where as lots of climbers who are already on their Everest pathways, they may have climbed a 7000m peak in South America or Kyrgyzstan or even 7000m peaks in Tibet or Pakistan – but under these proposed regulations those would not be applicable.”

That requirement could set back climbers who were wanting to take on Everest and had already climbed a 7000m peak, but just not in Nepal, she said.

“Summiting Everest (is) definitely not a walk in the park, it’s an extremely serious and dangerous mountain and you need to have experience before doing that.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand