Greymouth Star

Haast Hollyford Highway Ltd director Durham Havill is confident the proposed road on its own could ''easily'' draw close to one million visitors a year to the West Coast; double the current total tourist numbers to the region.

A cat found with two legs caught in a gin trap set in suburban Cobden will make a full recovery, but it is the second cat in six months trapped in the Cobden area.

Joanna Lam (24) was a woman with a ''big heart'' and an ''infectious smile'', according to her brother.

A fisherman rescued from his sinking boat near Greymouth on Friday had survived a similar incident on a vessel that caught fire three years ago.

About 150 scientists scoured Denniston Plateau at the weekend in the dead of night, and during a storm, in the hope of finding new species that could help derail plans by Perth-based Bathurst Resources to mine the plateau.

A couple travelling over the Otira Gorge in a house bus had a fright on Saturday, when the brakes failed as they descended the viaduct just below Candys Bend.

A Dunedin man and his son were involved in a fatal head-on crash that killed two people, including the father, near Haast on Wednesday.

Homes were evacuated and a street cordoned off late on Tuesday after a fake bomb was left at the door of an elderly Greymouth man.

The chairman of Pike River Coal said yesterday he was "horrified" at a litany of safety incidents at the West Coast mine, but could offer no meaningful explanation as to why they never reached his ears before the tragedy last November.

A report into what led to multiple criminal charges being laid after the Pike River mine explosions will be made public.