All 60 people forced overboard after their tourist boat caught fire off the coast of New Zealand have been rescued, according to authorities.

ARMED police stormed into this quiet village at dawn, threw up roadblocks, shot out truck tyres and forced families out of their homes at gunpoint.

Floods and earthquakes that killed two people over the weekend kept hundreds of New Zealanders from their homes today, and dairy farmers on the North Island asked for urgent help moving thousands of cows from swamped pastures.