Farmer relays concerns to minister: We d be better off with M bovis than floods stuff.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from stuff.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The view from Thompsons Track, near Ashburton, towards Mount Hutt at the weekend.
Photo: Supplied
Hundreds remain out of their homes on the West Coast after high river levels, flooding, fallen trees and slips closed state highways across the top of the South Island.
While the West Coast copped the brunt of the second major flooding catastrophe in a matter of weeks, the Mid Canterbury region could not avoid fresh damage.
Ashburton District Council was still monitoring the state of the district s roads, with 10 closures still in place on Monday evening.
Precautionary boil water notices also remained in place for the Methven and Methven-Springfield water schemes.
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Parts of Anne-Marie and her husband Chris s farm resemble a bombsite.
Their six-hectare water storage pond is destroyed, fences are buried, machinery has been damaged and logs, branches, rocks, gravel and up to a metre of silt have been dumped on the Ashburton Forks property. There s one pivot that was drowned, so we ll probably change its electric motors and of the two generators that run the pivots, one is written off and we re not sure if the other one can be repaired, she says.
Photo: RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes It s hard to quantify how we are going to tackle this problem, she admits.