Top Stories for Thursday 6 April 2017

A town in the Bay of Plenty is cut off, without power and people are trapped in their cars due to rising floodwaters. A relieved Whanganui mayor Hamish McDouall says the river hasn't reached the levels that were predicted and the city is not likely to be flooded. A flooded stream forced the evacuation of 23 homes near Wellington's south coast. The airport reopened this morning after the bad weather forced its closure last night when signalling was disrupted. Kaikoura's Local Recovery Manager Danny Smith says the evacuation of people living downstream of dams caused by November's earthquake were precautionary and the good news is that the weather has broken and he has high hopes the region will come out okay. US President Donald Trump has labelled yesterday's chemical attack in Syria 'an affront to humanity.' and says the attack has changed his entire view on Mr Assad and Syria. Our correspondent Simon Marks has the latest from Washington. The Privacy Commissioner, John Edwards, says the Government was wrong to demand that community groups hand over clients' private details if they were to continue receiving state funding. The owner of a Nelson charter boat firm, Lynley Bird, who moors her vessel on the wharf where a car was found submerged says the vehicle was found with hundreds of lead fishing sinkers in it. She says it appeared that people have been snagging fishing lines on the vehicle for a long time.