{"id":16400,"date":"2026-01-21T12:06:01","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T23:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=16400"},"modified":"2026-01-21T12:06:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T23:06:01","slug":"car-and-driver-missing-in-warkworth-after-trying-to-cross-river-amid-heavy-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=16400","title":{"rendered":"Car and driver missing in Warkworth after trying to cross river amid heavy rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

A person and their vehicle are missing after being washed out into a river north of Auckland, while trying to cross a ford on the Mahurangi River.<\/p>\n

Fire and Emergency were called to the rescue at a river crossing on Falls Road – near the intersection with Woodcocks Road – at about 7.51am on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Warkworth chief fire officer Nick McLean said rain had been\u00a0heavy and persistent<\/a>\u00a0in the area on Wednesday morning, and it was believed the person and their car were swept away by the river’s strength and high waters.<\/p>\n

A passenger had been able to get out of the vehicle and raised the alarm, police have confirmed.<\/p>\n

At this stage the man is still missing.<\/p>\n

McLean said about five whitewater rafts had been searching the section of the river from the ford at Mansel Drive to the area around the Mahurangi Hope Church.<\/p>\n

Drones had also been deployed and a section of Falls Road has been closed.<\/p>\n

McLean said about 20 people were involved in the search, including firefighters, police officers and whitewater rafters.<\/p>\n

Members of the public are advised to avoid the area, and people should pay close attention to weather warnings in place.<\/p>\n

Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A person and their vehicle are missing after being washed out into a river north of Auckland, while trying to cross a ford on the Mahurangi River. Fire and Emergency were called to the rescue at a river crossing on Falls Road – near the intersection with Woodcocks Road – at about 7.51am on Wednesday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16402,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16400\/revisions\/16402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}