Three earthquakes off the coast of New Zealand today has meant threat of tsunami for many on the coast, prompting towns to be evacuated with people sheltering on high ground.

A Covid-19 modeller and an epidemiologist say the alert level changes at the end of last week were justified, despite no new community cases for five days.

Auckland will move to alert level 2 and the rest of New Zealand will move to level 1 at 6am on Sunday morning, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced.

The Ministry of Education last year ordered schools to enrol 205 children because there was no other way of persuading principals to accept them.

A man has been arrested after barricading himself inside of a property in the Tāmaki Makaurau suburb of Mount Albert.

A scrub fire at a Wellington park that caused smoke to drift across surrounding suburbs this morning has been extinguished.

A police officer has avoided serious injury after a disqualified driver tried to flee a Covid-19 checkpoint north of Auckland yesterday.

A geyser of water higher than a two-storey building has erupted on a central Wellington street after a road repair crew hit a pipe.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says it's hard not to feel like New Zealand is having a run of bad luck, with residents waking up today to a tsunami alert amidst the Covid-19 restrictions.

Auckland may be able to join the rest of the country in alert level 1 as early as next weekend. See how the rest of the day's Covid-19 news devloped with RNZ's live blog.

The largest waves caused by the 8.1 magnitude earthquake have now passed and everyone who evacuated can now return, with the beach and marine threat for all areas now lifted.

A magnitude 8.1 quake is very large and could trigger considerable aftershocks each of which could pose a tsunami threat as well, says a geophysics professor.

In the last episode of Fragments, presenter Katy Gosset takes a look back at how many of the interviewees crossed paths - people who didn't know each other ended up in the same place.

The Rotorua barrister worked on a number of high profile cases, including the Nia Glassie murder trial.

The 13 parties charged by Worksafe in the aftermath of the deadly Whakaari eruption have made their first appearance in court.

Two teenagers have been charged following a shooting incident on Auckland's North Shore last week.

There have been no new community cases of Covid-19 reported in New Zealand today, with Aucklanders to find out this afternoon if there will be a change in alert levels.

The world's leading drone maker says its machines do not automatically share data with anyone, anywhere.