Young girl airlifted from cut-off settlement

Many roads were closed yesterday, but there was better news for motorists today. Picture / Hawke's Bay Today

A sick four-year-old girl was airlifted to hospital this afternoon from a settlement cut off by this week's storms.

A doctor ordered the helicopter rescue from Ruatahuna in the Urewera National Park at about 1.30pm today after becoming concerned for the girl's condition.

Roads in the area - between the Bay of Plenty and Hawkes Bay - are blocked by slips following heavy snowfall.

The girl was taken to Rotorua Hospital by the Tenon Rescue Helicopter but her life was not thought to be in danger.

Pilot Barry Vincent said the conditions were some of the worst he has seen in the area and, though the snow was now melting, it was still extremely windy and visibility was poor at times.

He told nzherald.co.nz: "It is still very changeable. If we had been there any longer then we would have been back down on the deck."

Elsewhere, major roads affected by the snow re-opened today.

The Desert Road opened at noon after being closed by snow for more than two days. The Napier-Taupo Road and the Rimutaka Hill Road were also opened to traffic this morning as conditions across the country began to ease. But police said motorists should still drive with "extreme care".

MetService no longer had any road snow warnings in place and it said severe gales in parts of northern Gisborne and Eastern Bay of Plenty were easing through the morning.

Forecasters said a depression lay northeast of the North Island which they now expected to start to drift slowly away.

However, SH38 at Tuai remained closed by snow and SH35 between Ruatoria and Te Puia Springs was blocked by a land slip. Caution was also needed on South Island roads due to snow and ice.

As conditions improved, more than 100 linesmen were working to reconnect the last of the South Canterbury customers left without power for almost two weeks.

By last night, around 400 of the 12,000 homes which lost electricity supplies in recent snow storms were still cut off, but Alpine Energy chief Greg Skelton hoped power would be restored to many of them today.

He said that now it had stopped snowing, linesmen had reasonable conditions to work in.

Civil Defence was sending staff to check on some of the Canterbury residents still without electricity.

Spokesman James Thompson said response teams would leave Christchurch this morning heading for Waimate.

He said the weather has been clear over the past 24 hours, which helped melt the snowfall. While that has also caused some surface flooding, it has allowed the power companies to make good progress getting electricity back on.

- additional reporting NEWSTALK ZB

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