The mysterious disappearance of Joseph Ahuriri has been added to an inquest into deaths associated with Cyclone Gabrielle and the extreme weather events of early 2023.
Coroner Erin Woolley has been conducting inquiries into the deaths of 18 people arising from the Auckland Anniversary Floods and Cyclone Gabrielle in January and February 2023.
However, when the hearings resumed in the Hastings courthouse today, the Coroner’s Court was informed that a 19th name had been added to the list – that of Joseph Ahuriri.
Ahuriri, 40, was last seen at a fuel stop in Bay View, north of Napier, in the early hours of February 14, 2023, just as Cyclone Gabrielle was hammering the east coast regions.
At the time he disappeared, Ahuriri was attempting to get from Napier to Gisborne after making the journey in the opposite direction about 24 hours earlier.
Police have been looking for Ahuriri and his vehicle for more than two and a half years, at times employing metal-detecting drones, navy divers, shoreline searches, and contractors searching through mounds of rubble along the side of the roads.
CCTV footage taken at the time of his last sighting shows Ahuriri – the lone occupant in his white Toyota Hilux – get out of the vehicle and look backwards towards Napier at the fuel stop. He then drives away.
It was filmed as Hawke’s Bay was being hammered by record rainfall brought by Cyclone Gabrielle.
The father-of-eight’s family fear his ute – registration DZH116 – was washed away by the raging floodwaters or swept off a road by one of the many slips that occurred on State Highway 2 or on the back routes which might have allowed him to get from Napier to Gisborne.
Other theories bandied around Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne include that something untoward – and not cyclone-related – happened to Ahuriri.
Police previously said that they did not believe Ahuriri’s death was cyclone-related, but the Coroner’s Court has now confirmed that his fate has now become part of the inquest.
“Joseph Ahuriri’s death has been referred to the coroner and will be considered as part of the joint inquiry into Cyclone Gabrielle,” a spokesperson for the court confirmed.
The circumstances of Ahuriri’s disappearance will become part of the long-running inquest’s hearings next year.
Hearings were held in Auckland in August into the deaths in flooding over the Auckland Anniversary Weekend in January 2023, and at Muruwai during Cyclone Gabrielle the following month.
The Hastings part of the inquiry began this morning, focusing on Cyclone Gabrielle, and will run for two weeks before another scheduled week next month.
The youngest of those who died in the Hawke’s Bay region was toddler Ivy Collins. Her family home in Eskdale was flooded in the cyclone. The oldest was Helen Street, 86, who died in Napier and was dependent on supplied oxygen.
Three apparently self-inflicted deaths, which happened in the months following the cyclone, are also being looked at. There are non-reporting restrictions surrounding aspects of those deaths.
In addition to Ahuriri, the cyclone was also associated with nine deaths in Hawke’s Bay, Tairāwhiti Gisborne and surrounding area during or immediately after the cyclone.
The nine people were: Susane Caccioppoli, 55, John Coates, 64, Ivy Collins, 2, Marie Greene, 59, George Luke, 64, Ian McLauchlan, 76, Brendan Miller, 43, Helen Street, 86, and Shona Wilson, 58.
The witnesses to be called this week include officials from Fire and Emergency NZ, the Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence and Emergency Management Group, the police, MetService, and Napier, Hastings and Hawke’s Bay Regional councils.
More than a dozen lawyers representing these organisations and assisting the inquiry are in attendance.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay.