Hundreds of telephone calls have been received today at the Christchurch City Council's incident room set up for the flood emergency.

A large team, mostly from Water Services, City Streets, and Waste Water units, manned the room as calls continued to pour in for five hours. Calls dropped off from 3pm. The City Council had teams of specialist staff around the city working to ease the situation. The road from Little River to Akaroa has been affected by slips and could be closed. A large tree, brought down in Main South Road, outside Denton Park, blocked the city-bound lane. Sewage has overflowed in several parts of the city. Some overflowed in toilet bowls and some through manholes. Emergency generators were brought into use at several pumping stations. The rain continues to ease and had stopped in the north of the city. The wind was dropping away, too. The high tide is expected at 5.30pm and by 6.30pm the City Council engineers should know of any further problems in the lower-lying stretches of the Avon and Heathcote rivers. A central-city revitalisation public consultation meeting with ICENG (Inter City East Neighbourhood Association) at the Linwood Community Arts Centre tonight is postponed.

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