Several thousand people have lost power across the upper half and west coast of the South Island

This includes Nelson, where the whole city has lost power with traffic lights out through the whole region.

Canterbury is under a State of Emergency, as far north as Kaikoura and south near Oamaru, with rare Red Wind Warnings also in place for Wellington, southern Wairarapa and southern Marlborough.

Transpower is working to find the cause of the outage.