Ita's tail wreaks havoc across NZ

ROADS are closed, roofs blown off, and thousands of homes and businesses left without power as storms lash much of the country.

The fire service had received 844 emergency calls by 4pm local time on Thursday, with about a quarter coming from the West Coast of the South Island.

Winds of up to 140km/h from the tail end of Cyclone Ita caused havoc in Buller, blocking roads and knocking out power to almost all the region's 4500 customers.

Buller Electricity chief executive Erik Westergaard says only the small town of Karamea has power, and that's through a diesel generator.

"I had to go outside because a pole was about to fall over and the wind picked me up and shifted me 10m across the road," Mr Westergaard told AAP.

As he spoke, a sheet of iron blew over the building and landed on the fence surrounding the Westport substation.

"We've got three crews out in the field, but they can't go anywhere because trees are blocking the road, but we know they're safe."

Further south, Cobden Bridge at Greymouth was closed because of strong winds and a welfare centre has been set up so stranded motorists can spend the night at Greymouth Baptist Church.

Earlier, about 15,000 Auckland customers of Vector Energy had lost power after fallen trees and other debris knocked out power.

Vector's crews were gradually restoring power as the storm moved south and by 7pm about 2300 customers were still facing a blackout.

Hundreds of people in the Rotorua area were also without power after gales and heavy rain brought down trees and power lines.

Numerous roads were closed in Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Coromandel during the day by fallen trees and power lines, and flooding.

By the evening, New Zealand Transport Agency said State Highway 2 between Western Drain and Awakeri in Bay of Plenty was still closed by fallen trees.

Coromandel's Kopu-Hikuai Road reopened as far as the Whangamata turn-off, but remained closed from there through to Tairua.

Senior Sergeant Rupert Friend, of Waikato Police District, said there was still surface water in areas where roads were open and he urged extreme caution by all drivers "as now it is dark the surface water is harder to see".

The bad weather also caused Interislander ferry sailings to be cancelled and a landslip that resulted in two Oriental Parade properties in Wellington being evacuated.

MetService meteorologist Dan Corbett said the weather would gradually improve over Easter weekend as the tropical low drifted south.

"The intense band of rain and strong to severe gales will sink south to engulf central parts of New Zealand by the end of Thursday, followed by slowly improving weather in the far north," he said.

"The wet and windy weather will still affect eastern parts of the South Island early on Good Friday, but it will improve gradually here too as the tropical low drifts south away from the country."

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