The homes of hundreds of people were evacuated and a state of emergency declared in tourism areas of New Zealand's South Island on Wednesday after three days of torrential rain.
Up to 350 people were ordered out of about 200 low-lying properties along the Clutha river in the mountainous central Otago district.
In the towns of Alexandra and Roxburgh a state of civil emergency was declared. Flood waters lapped the roofs of some single-storey buildings.
A spokesman for Central Otago District Council, Mr Martin McPherson, said the waters were not expected to peak until this morning, and a further 150 families were on stand-by for evacuation.
"It's a creeping flood. It's taking its time coming in so we have the time to warn people so that we can evacuate them. We don't have a panic situation or a dramatic influx of water," he told state-run Television New Zealand (TVNZ).
Television pictures showed some shops in the mountain resort of Queenstown were thigh-deep in water as neighbouring Lake Wakatipu rose two metres to its highest level this century.
Queenstown Lakes District Council considered declaring a state of emergency, but its chief executive, Mr Duncan Field, told Reuters that by evening the situation was easing. "The rate at which the lake is rising is slowing down . . . We're able to cope with the resources we've got," he said.
Authorities warned that despite the easing of the rains it would be several hours before the worst of up to 650mm of rain in the mountains washed through the region.
At the Queenstown Park Royal hotel, 50 rooms were flooded and sandbags were used to keep floodwaters out of the lobby. Guests from one hotel were moved to dry ground by a tourist jet boat, but some travellers enjoyed the experience, helping deploy sandbags around the town.
"You have to turn a lemon into lemonade, and we're enjoying it. We're feeling sorry for the locals," one visitor told TVNZ.
The resort was isolated with the airport closed and many roads blocked by flooding and landslides. "All the roads out of Queenstown are blocked, so it's a matter of sitting tight and remaining patient," Police Inspector Phil Jones said.
Access roads to the smaller resort town of Wanaka were also washed away. A few homes and much of the central business district were under 30 to 40cm of rising floodwaters.
Power was cut to many areas in the region, and some water supplies were contaminated. Farther south in Te Anau up to 25cm of snow was reported to have fallen despite it being only two weeks before the start of summer.
TVNZ reported that a 20-year-old Australian climber had been trapped for three days in a snow cave in Mount Aspiring National Park, and could not be rescued till at least this morning because of atrocious weather conditions.
Residents along the mainly rural Clutha river flood plain were warned to leave their homes as floodgates on hydroelectric dams upriver were opened wide to release record flows which the dams' owner said it could not contain.
Electricity traders reported water inflows to the South Island lakes, a major source of New Zealand's power, were 338 per cent of average for the past week, and this had depressed spot prices.