Containers, milk powder and polystyrene debris have washed ashore this morning at Waihi Beach, 60km north of the Rena's grounding point near Tauranga.
Port of Tauranga chief executive Mark Cairns is currently being briefed on the situation at the Incident Coordination Centre, reports BusinessDesk. More information is expected to be released at 11am.
Container recovery specialist Grant Dyson said buoys have been attached to 45 containers this morning. There are a number of anchorage points out at sea.
Dyson said debris was starting to wash onto Mt Maunganui and Papamoa beaches - mainly insulation and timber.
He confirmed that five containers are ashore at Waihi Beach.
Sam Anderson said he was walking his dog at 6.30am when he saw around 200-300 packets of milk powder washed ashore at the beach, as well as "three really bashed-up containers" in the water.
Mr Anderson said he didn't see any clean-up crew members on the beach, where a strong odour was in the air.
Residents Pam and Dave told nzherald.co.nz the debris and containers were floating off the north end of the beach, and appeared to heading north up the Coromandel Peninsula. Ben van Toledo said he had spotted one floating near the local surf club.
Waihi Beach Community Board member Derek Mills told the Bay of Plenty Times there were four containers already on the beach.
"One of them is broken up and there's something that looks like milk powder, Mr Mills said.
"There's a great heap of that on the beach."
Mr Mills was on the beach at 6am and said it looked as though the containers at sea were travelling north.
"That's what is scaring me because if they crash into the rocks at Coromandel and start banging into those rocks ... it's a bit of a shock I guess. We thought we were a bit bulletproof because last time it missed us and headed towards Maketu."
A spokeswoman for Maritime New Zealand confirmed representatives for Braemar Howells were sent to the beach today to put in security measures as some of the debris could be hazardous.
Maritime New Zealand said it was important no one touched any debris or containers, which are believed to contain milk powder, timber, plastics and furniture.
At Mount Maunganui, Jacinta Fitzgerald reported seeing "foam and scum" and possibly oil washed ashore north of Tay Street.
A hotline has been set up to report anything washed ashore.
Environment Minister Nick Smith says it's unlikely there will be a repeat of the black tides that closed a number of Bay of Plenty beaches last year.
The aching wreck of the Greek-owned ship, which crashed into Astrolabe Reef off the coast of Tauranga on October 5, finally relented on Saturday night with a six-metre swell breaking it in two and tossing up to 300 containers overboard.
There is now a yawning 20 to 30m gap between the ship's bow and stern section, which is listing at 23 degrees to starboard and is likely to sink.
Maritime New Zealand said there has been no significant changes to the position and condition of the vessel overnight.
An observational flight this morning will gather more information about the status of the Rena, as well as to observe where lost containers have scattered and whether anymore oil has leaked from the vessel.
Environment Minister Nick Smith said the latest development in New Zealand's worst environmental disaster was "serious but not unexpected" as maritime officials had predicted a big swell was likely to break the vessel apart.
"It was simply a matter of time before there would be a storm event of sufficient magnitude to break the vessel in two and what has transpired in the last 24 hours is very much expected," said Mr Smith.
He said things had improved from an environmental perspective with the removal of the bulk of the 1300 tonnes of oil on board which means "the risks for the environment are a fraction of what they were in October".
"It is possible that there will be releases of oil but they will be in the order of tens of tonnes and not hundreds of tonnes and those things are unlikely to result in any beach closures."
Mr Smith said the bow section of the vessel was firmly wedged on the reef and would probably not shift but the stern was "likely to sink at some stage" and recovery of the containers on it had become problematic.
"Certainly it is true that the potential for recovery of containers on the stern section of the vessel has now become an order of magnitude more difficult given the extent of the damage to the ship."
National On Scene Commander Alex van Wijngaarden said response teams including wildlife experts and defence forces had been mobilised.
He said trajectory modelling predicted any oil released from the ship was to have come ashore early this morning, landing on beaches south east of Mt Maunganui but this was weather-dependent.
Maritime New Zealand salvage unit manager David Billington said officials yesterday found the ship with many of its hatch covers broken and containers thrown into the sea.
He said salvors were working to assess its state so naval architects could undertake further calculations to get a clearer picture of its ongoing stability.
Mr Billington said more containers were likely to be lost.
Claudine Sharp of recovery company Braemar Howells said of the 837 containers on the ship before the weekend storm between 200 and 300 had been washed overboard.
Of those, between 20 and 30 per cent had been fitted with transponders and around 30 containers had already been found. Ms Sharp said just 20 per cent of the containers would float, the rest would sink.
Shipping lines to Tauranga harbour remain open but the three-nautical-mile exclusion zone around the Rena remains in place.
Ms Sharp said the company was working closely with the harbour master and had been doing sonar sweeps of the harbour entrance for invisible containers.
She said trajectory models showed containers and debris heading in a northwest direction, probably towards Waihi. The debris is likely to wash ashore this afternoon but this was again weather and wind dependent.
"Our plan is to corral them and recover them promptly."
Tauranga mayor Stuart Crosby said the inclement weather had kept people off the beaches.
He said people needed to leave debris washed ashore to the response teams.
"Kiwis are inquisitive by nature and I'm sure there will be a lot of people on the beaches looking for debris. The main thing is ... they don't touch it.
"The key issue has always been the oil, what oil that may have ended up on beaches will be very small and will be removed very quickly."
- James Ihaka, NZ Herald/Kiri Gillespie, Bay of Plenty Times
