Civil defence officials remain on alert in the West Coast, with heavy rain still pelting down and further significant falls forecast.
In Westland, State Highway 6 is closed from Fox Glacier to the Haast Pass Lookout because of flooding and slips. Drivers are warned of surface water on SH6 Hokitika to Fox Glacier and SH67 Westport to Mokihinu.
At Haast, 244mm of rain has fallen in a 24-hour period. About 100mm fell in the six hours from 6pm Wednesday.
Some schools which have just reopened for the year will be closed in South Westland today because of flooding affecting much of the West Coast.
South Westland Area School and Haast School will be shut today and tomorrow.
The Waiho River in Franz Josef was being closely monitored and several families living on the south bank of the river had been given the option to relocate to the Franz Josef township for the night, West Coast Emergency Management said. The Haast and Hokitika Rivers are also being monitored.
To the north, a state of emergency is in place in Buller district, where emergency management controller Sean Judd said significant rain was still to come.
Early on Thursday morning the rivers near Westport were still within their banks but Judd said the message remained that people should be ready to leave their homes if necessary.
MetService forecasts continuing rain for Westland, possibly easing during Thursday, but with more heavy falls on Friday. For Buller, further rain is likely overnight on Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning.
The district council has distributed more than 23,000 sandbags for people to protect their homes.
Buller Emergency Management has had reports of sandbags being removed from Chorus cabinets that contain fibre and copper network links and is asking people not to take those ones.
Sandbags have been put out elsewhere in both Hokitika and Westport for members of the public to use to protect their properties.
Chorus said it has been doing flood preparations to keep the telecommunications network going, including refuelling generators and putting sandbags and plastic wrap around cabinets in Westport.
RNZ
