A Wanganui school has suffered potentially tens of thousands of dollars of damage after vandals broke a water pipe and flooded one of the buildings.
The Maori language school - Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Tupoho - in Cross St, Castlecliff, was vandalised on Tuesday night when someone jumped on the roof.
"They have gone on the roof and started kicking things about, then they hit one of the pipes going into the building. It burst the water pipe inside," said chairman of the board of trustees Hayden Potaka.
Yesterday morning, staff, firefighters and locals were ankle-deep in water as they began the clean-up.
Mr Potaka said the school server, which cost $20,000, was damaged and the assessor said it might need to be replaced.
Some of the walls in the building had needed to be ripped out due to water damage. He said all the carpet cleaning and contracting work might add up to another $20,000.
The building is insured.
"Luckily, the primary school kids were away on camp up the river at the marae," Mr Potaka said.
Senior students were helping with the clean-up yesterday and members of the community came in to lend a hand.
Mr Potaka said vandals were "a bit of a problem" for schools around Wanganui but he thought the culprits "probably didn't realise they did as much damage as they did".
"I'm very disappointed that the vandals do this to schools, especially when they are there to provide education for our kids."
He called the incident disturbing and hoped the community could come together to identify the offenders.
Police would be reviewing security camera footage.
Mr Potaka said he wanted to thank the community, staff, students and the fire brigade for their help in cleaning up the mess.