New Zealand: Coming to grips with flood devastation

Whanganui locals are coming to grips with the devastation caused by the city's biggest ever floods, reports Radio New Zealand.

Hone Tamehima said repairing sacred Maori art would not come cheap when the taonga was priceless. "Insurance-wise, we couldn't even get an evaluation on the carvings, with [them] being original. No insurance company wanted to go near it." The carvings were about 200 years old.

For many locals, the problems caused by the flood would stick around far longer than the mud.