Cyclone-strength gusts have lashed New Zealand's South Island and the capital Wellington, creating transport chaos and cutting power.
A state of emergency was declared in Canterbury due to the wild weather, which ravaged the nation on Thursday.
The spring storm arrived with inauspicious timing: on the day of the funeral for former NZ prime minister Jim Bolger, and the nation's biggest general strike in decades.
Up to 100,000 public servants, teachers and nurses were among professions to walk off the job, although for those in storm-hit regions, their protest was a SFH: strike from home.
Some health workers returned to the job in Nelson, where a back-up generator failed at the regional hospital.
Early on Thursday, the weather caused a mass power outage to around 90,000 homes in the regions at the top of the South Island, which was restored after roughly an hour.
Gusts over 220km/h were reported in unpopulated and exposed parts of Marlborough while state meteorologists recorded a 191km/h winds in Southland.
In Wellington - so often the scene of windy weather - gusts of 155km/h were felt in the hills, and of 135km/h in the inner suburb of Kelburn.
There were mass flight cancellations and delays - including a halt on all flights in or out of the capital for six hours - leading to stranded travellers.
Thousands of Kiwis were left without power in Wellington and in various South Island regions, where highways were cut off by slips, fallen trees and flooding.
MetService anticipated the storm and declared a red warning, saved for only the most destructive weather events, warning of a threat to life in several regions.
