Mataura residents are allowed to return their homes this evening after being evacuated over flooding and fears of a toxic risk at the town's former paper mill.
Emergency Management Southland confirmed the news at 6pm, but said there were still some areas of surface flooding in the town and some houses had had power disconnected.
The organisation said some properties could be inundated or uninhabitable - properties without water, a flushing toilet, or excessive dampness that could cause respiratory issues.
People who need assistance or advice should go to the Mataura community centre, in McQueen Ave, where a community support centre is being set up.
There will be basic necessities available and a water tanker, from 8pm, and port-a-loos.
State Highway 1 through Mataura was reopened about 6pm and there is surface flooding along the main road and a number of houses are surrounded by floodwater.
Several houses on Bristol St have had water through them.
Many residents who were evacuated from the town have begun to return home to assess the damage.
One of them was Alison Bishop.
Her house, which survived previous floods in 1978 and 1913, has dirty brown floodwater right around it.
The house had just been renovated and Alison Bishop and her husband were planning to retire soon.
She said they were able to get some of their belongings off the ground, but it was likely they would face a big clean-up.
They have a motorhome, so they hoped they would be able to stay in that while they got things sorted.
At the house next door, there is a mark on the fence showing how high the water got.
People wading through it ended up knee-deep, with water spilling over the tops of their gumboots.
It is the last evacuated town to be reopened in Southland after the Mataura River flooded yesterday morning.
At one of the evacuation centres, Edendale Christian Fellowship, the news people could return was met with whoops and cheers and hugging.
Southland Emergency Management says about 20 homes are uninhabitable.
Mataura, Wyndham and large parts of Gore were evacuated yesterday as rising river levels inundated ow-lying homes, businesses and farms in the area.
Earlier in the day a toxic risk for residents was cleared as the former Mataura paper mill was found to be structurally sound, dry, and fears the toxic ouvea premix would enter the environment unfounded.
There were fears ahead of today’s assessment of the building at the centre of the flood-ravaged Southland town that thousands of tonnes of the potentially dangerous chemical — the dross from the New Zealand Aluminium Smelters (NZAS) Tiwai Point smelter — would mix with floodwater and generate poisonous ammonia gas.
Gore District Council chief executive Steve Parry told a media conference in Gore this afternoon the council was working "fast" to ensure the premix did not present a risk again in the future.
The nearby Alliance Groups Mataura plant and the Mataura Bridge were also inspected and cleared today by emergency services and specialist personnel.
Meanwhile, upriver in Gore, Ontario St residents and business owners were still unable to get back into their properties.
Multiple pumps were pumping out flood waters in a bid to open the street.
Gore Mayor Tracy Hicks acknowledged residents’ frustrations and apologised the council had not ‘‘been able to get information to residents as quickly as we would have liked’’.
In Balclutha, some residents who voluntarily evacuated due to flooding yesterday can now return home.
Civil Defence staff have been working to reduce the risk by pumping water out of the Hospital Road Embankment.
In an update this evening the Clutha District Council said the level had been "significantly lowered" and they were continuing to pump.
Affected residents could now return home and there was no longer a ‘'red zone'’ of potentially at-risk properties.
- additional reporting RNZ
