{"id":3080,"date":"2023-02-15T12:58:15","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T23:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3080"},"modified":"2023-02-15T12:58:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-14T23:58:15","slug":"muriwai-slip-body-found-in-search-for-trapped-firefighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=3080","title":{"rendered":"Muriwai slip: Body found in search for trapped firefighter"},"content":{"rendered":"

A body has been found by\u00a0searchers looking for a missing firefighter<\/a>\u00a0in Muriwai, on Auckland’s west coast.<\/p>\n

The firefighter was checking flooding in a property on Motutara Road on Monday, when the property was hit by another house that collapsed during the widespread winds and rains unleashed by Cyclone Gabrielle.<\/p>\n

A second firefighter, Craig Stephens, who was in the property at the time got out and was taken to hospital. He is now in critical but stable condition.<\/p>\n

In a written update from Fire and Emergency on Wednesday just before 11.30am, they said their teams alongside police had found the body in the Motutara Road search area.<\/p>\n

“We have not yet identified who this is and will be working with police to retrieve and identify the body.<\/p>\n

“We will provide more information later today. I acknowledge the difficult time this is for all of us, particularly for family, the Muriwai Volunteer Fire Brigade and all at Fire and Emergency New Zealand.”<\/p>\n

Fire and Emergency (FENZ) asked people to respect the involved families’ privacy.<\/p>\n

In an\u00a0update from the government on the cyclone response<\/a>\u00a0before midday, Emergency Management Minsiter Kieran McAnulty and Defence Force Minister Andrew Little extended their condolonces.<\/p>\n

“Our deepest condolences to the family, to the community, and to all volunteers and emergency services – this will no doubt hit hard,” McAnulty said.<\/p>\n

“We rely on volunteer firefighters, every community in the country relies on them and when they respond to a natural weather event in their own patch, they’re leaving their own home and their own family to help others, so that’s just an absolute tragedy.”<\/p>\n

Earlier on Wednesday morning, crews had resumed the search for the firefighter after having to abandon it on Tuesday night when darkness fell, due to safety.<\/p>\n

At the time, FENZ chief executive Kerry Gregory said they held out hope to find the firefighter.<\/p>\n

“All of our brigades are very much like families, so it’s like losing a family member. So it’s going to be a long healing process for brigades, because we don’t lose firefighters every day. This is really a rare event for us.”<\/p>\n

Crews had removed 2000 cubic metres of soil and debris, picked apart a house piece by piece and used various means like thermal imaging, a K9 dog, and listening devices to try and locate the missing firefighter.<\/p>\n

Other properties on Motutara Road were evacuated too after the slip, and Auckland Council’s emergency management team on Tuesday asked property owners in the worst-affected parts of Muriwai to consider their own safety and stay out of their homes for the time being.<\/p>\n

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

A body has been found by\u00a0searchers looking for a missing firefighter\u00a0in Muriwai, on Auckland’s west coast. The firefighter was checking flooding in a property on Motutara Road on Monday, when the property was hit by another house that collapsed during the widespread winds and rains unleashed by Cyclone Gabrielle. A second firefighter, Craig Stephens, who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-3080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news","tag-featured"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3080","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=3080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3082,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3080\/revisions\/3082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}