Natural Disasters

Auckland District Court will on Tuesday release its verdict on the sole company left facing health and safety charges relating to the Whakaari/White Island eruption.

The government and five Hawke's Bay councils have signed a $556 million cost-sharing cyclone recovery package that includes buying out flood-wrecked homes.

Residents are used to the smell, the fumes and the trembling but have been rocked by two quakes.

The out-of-season cyclone, which ripped across Vanuatu this week, formed on Sunday and hit its peak on Tuesday with gusts up to 295 kilometres per hour.

Vanuatu has been hit by three cyclones in eight months. The latest has affected more than 10,000 households and destroyed some, along with schools.

Reports are emerging of widespread damage in Vanuatu's northern provinces, where Cyclone Lola first made landfall on Tuesday.

A tropical cyclone warning is in place for Vanuatu's Torba province, with tropical cyclone Lola now category 2 storm as of Monday morning.

Tai Rāwhiti chalked up the highest participation rate in the country for the third year running during this year's annual earthquake and tsunami drill.

MetService has concluded its weather forecasting models performed badly before the extreme rainfall that devastated Auckland on 27 January and need to be urgently improved.

The Waikato region is set to receive $1 million in funding to enhance resilience against flood risks in the Coromandel Peninsula.

Cyclone Gabrielle tore through parts of the district in February causing serious flooding in the small community.

Cyclone Gabrielle rescuers could not get hold of utes to get to flood zones in a mad scramble, documents show. Audio

With Hawke's Bay and the East Coast still knee-deep in the recovery from Gabrielle, there's pressure on the regions' new MPs to get it right. Audio

The 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Herat province which has been hit by a series of recent tremors.