Two dangerous prisoners are still on the run and police concede they have few leads.
Thomas Hudson, 32, and Michael Paul McKegg, 27, used implements to slice their way through the bars of their remand cell window at the Manawatu Prison outside Palmerston North, between 9.45pm on Saturday and 10am Sunday.
Police have warned that Hudson could be armed.
Police said calls had come from Taranaki, Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa, Manawatu and Wellington, but none of the sightings had proved positive.
A Palmerston North house was raided on Tuesday night but no sign of Hudson, the ringleader, was found.
Detective Sergeant Dave Clifford said today that police had not turned up anything significant in their hunt for the pair.
Both were "reasonably resourceful" and Hudson had friends in many places.
"I wouldn't be surprised if they were down in the South Island," Mr Clifford said. "They could be anywhere."
Police were hoping a member of the public of an associate of the pair would alert them to any sightings.
It was likely the pair may have split up, he said.
Hudson was the target of a manhunt this year, which resulted in his arrest by the police armed offenders' squad in Tauranga.
He is awaiting a March trial for attempted murder in relation to a stabbing in Palmerston North in 2001.
Hudson and McKegg slipped through their cell window, then used blankets to build a bridge from the roof across the near-new double razor wire fence of the prison, before dropping 4.2m to freedom.
Both escapers are Caucasian. Hudson is 1.7m tall, of medium build, with short dark hair and brown eyes. McKegg is 1.8m, medium build, with a crewcut and hazel eyes.
- NZPA
Dangerous prisoners still on the run
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