Searchers working to locate a student missing in Abbey Caves, Whangārei have recovered a body.
The search was expected to conclude around 5pm yesterday, however, specialist equipment that was brought up from Auckland allowed the search to continue for longer.
This helped enable searchers to locate a body, which was successfully recovered late yesterday evening.
As such, the search has now concluded.
‘While formal ID of the body is yet to take place, Police are ensuring the family is being offered support, and our thoughts remain with them at this tragic time,’ said Superintendent Tony Hill, Northland District Commander.
‘Some cordons will remain in place around the caves area while Police continue to conduct a routine scene examination.
‘We acknowledge this event has been very distressing for the school and wider community, and that there are a number of questions the public will have.
‘At the moment, Police’s focus is on supporting those affected, and we remind people to please not make assumptions as to what has occurred.’
Three articles about this incident in a row and NO indication of what has happened? Since when is journalism censored by police? This is not a good standard of reporting.
We don’t have ALL of the facts yet, so it’s probably unwise to jump to conclusions, but honestly what in God’s name were the school officials thinking?
Taking a bunch of kids down into a cave system when there had already been so many warnings of heavy rain and potential flooding etc all over the met service website, news and radio all morning. Sounds an awful lot like gross negligence in my unprofessional legal opinion. A child is dead, some rolling of heads is in order.