Flooding isolates East Cape town

State Highway 35 around the East Cape will be closed for days because of a slip brought down as heavy rain headed south towards Wairarapa and beyond. ‘‘It was absolutely heavy, heavy rain. You can see our region took a hammering,’’ Gisborne Mayor Rehette Stoltz said. She confirmed the beachside community of Tokomaru Bay had experienced flooding yesterday morning. Homes in low-lying areas had been evacuated. State Highway 35 was earlier closed north and south of Tokomaru Bay. That had since reopened but a slip had come down on the highway at Po¯taka. The road was probably going to stay closed there for a couple of days, Stoltz said. MetService has heavy rain warnings in force for Wairarapa, where up to 200mm of rain could fall in the ranges from yesterday until late tonight. Kaiko¯ura in the South Island also had a heavy rain warning. Up to 280mm of rain was expected there and it would peak from yesterday afternoon to this morning.