About 250 people were bused up the hillside to the Strongman Mine site on Saturday for a poignant ceremony to commemorate the tragedy there 50 years ago.

State Highway 73 will reopen to single-lane traffic past the Otira slip tomorrow, but with delays, and the rail line is expected to open on Wednesday.

Man charged with disorderly behaviour after firing Nerf guns in Greymouth McDonald's restaurant.

THE emotion generated by dramatic and traumatic loss of life is a potent force. It can defy logic, it can prompt irrational acts

South Island police are concerned for the wellbeing of two missing people and ask anyone with information to contact them.

More than 200 people gathered this morning for a minute's silence 50 years on from the Strongman Mine disaster.

Both the Grey and Buller rivers were still rising at noon today, but civil defence said the rate had slowed.

Amazing pictures show a massive slip blocking a major South Island route as wild weather wreaked havoc on the West Coast today.

The summer "bomb low" is expected to continue to bring wild weather to the country today.

Labour leader Andrew Little is proposing a new solution to recover bodies in the Pike River coal mine.

The worst of the West Coast's wet weather should be over by dawn tomorrow, says Hokitika weather observer Mark Crompton.

Greymouth funeral director Laurie Anisy was a trainee and just two weeks shy of his 17th birthday when he got word there had been an explosion at the Strongman Mine.

Strongman mine disaster happened 50 years ago next week. Paul McBride catches up with the five surviving members of the Mines Rescue teams.

Northland DHB risks losing $1.5 million in elective surgery funding, chief doctor says

The temperature in Westland has managed to pass the 20C mark only once so far this year.

A West Coast Civil Defence warning of a possible big earthquake on the Coast was a "misinterpretation of the facts" caused by lack of training and understanding, says an independent report.

A Carters Beach family left the seafront yesterday afternoon just minutes before a freak wave flooded the adjacent domain, scattering huge logs like matchsticks.

Unionised resident doctors are reported to be working through the strike at some hospitals.

Doctors' strike at 18 DHBs to disrupt care for thousands of patients

A museum replica of the Seddon family homestead that once stood in Kumara has been suggested for the historic site.

A Westport publican was knocked out, his nephew suffered a broken jaw and a friend was badly bruised in a fracas early yesterday morning.

A minute's silence will be observed in Greymouth on Thursday to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Strongman Mine disaster which claimed 19 lives.

District health boards are making their final preparations for the three-day strike by unionised resident doctors that starts tomorrow morning.

Next week's 50th anniversary of the Strongman Mine disaster may be the last opportunity for many to remember the 1967 tragedy.

The Kaikoura earthquake badly hit tourism spending in the region but national figures are brighter.

A 58-year-old Dillmanstown man recently sentenced to home detention for drink-driving was arrested in Kumara early today after he cut off his electronic monitoring belt.

The now former police sergeant ordered another officer to fire a Taser in a 'flagrant abuse of his power' and he was also convicted for careless driving in 2014.

Police should not have twice Tasered a drunk West Coast man, authority rules.

Free tourist access to attractions like Punakaiki's Pancake Rocks and the Cape Foulwind seal colony is too costly for ratepayers, says Buller Mayor Garry Howard.

Buller's Old Ghost Road trail is proving so popular one of its huts is already almost booked out for the rest of the summer.