Residents have been forced to swim to safety in the north of New Zealand after the country was battered by Cyclone Gabrielle.
Some have had to be winched from the rooftops of their flooded homes.
The government declared a state of national emergency for only the third time in its history after the cyclone caused widespread flooding and landslides, forcing people to evacuate their homes.
Cancelled flights stranded thousands of people, while hundreds of thousands without power.
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said: “The severity and the breadth of the damage that we are seeing has not been experienced in a generation.”
As of 6pm local time (5am GMT), the cyclone had moved southeast of Auckland near to the east coast of the country’s north island.
Weather warnings remained in place for much of the east coast of the North Island and upper South Island.
About 225,000 people were left without electricity, while dozens of supermarkets closed.
Mr Hipkins urged New Zealanders not to panic-buy supplies.
Architect Lars von Minden, 50, lives in Muriwai, a beach town on the coast west of Auckland.
“I've seldom seen anything like it," he told Reuters.
“There are three or four areas where there are just these massive slips, some of them 300 metres across, that have come down, taking out houses and roads and everything."
Kieran McAnulty, minister of emergency management, said that while New Zealand was now through the worst of the storm, more rain and high winds were expected.
The country was suffering from extensive flooding, landslides and damage to roads and infrastructure, he added.
The storm has hit hardest in coastal communities on the far north and east coast of the North Island.
Nearly a third of New Zealand's 5.1 million population live in the affected areas.
According to local news reports, some residents in Hawke's Bay, southeast of Auckland, had to swim through bedroom windows to escape from rising waters.
Media also reported one person was missing after a house slid down a hill in Hawke's Bay, while the fire and emergency service said a volunteer firefighter was still in a house that had been swept downhill in a landslide.
Hipkins said it was too early to say how many people had been displaced or injured. No deaths have been confirmed.
New Zealand previously declared national emergencies after an earthquake in 2011 and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020.
