Heng Li, pictured on his friend Ying Dai's phone, drowned at Uretiti Beach on Christmas Day, 2014. Photo / New Zealand Herald
Jan 27- The coroner says people must listen to surf lifesavers and follow basic water safety rules to avoid more crab-fishing drownings on New Zealand beaches.
An inquest into the death of a young Chinese man who drowned at Uretiti Beach on Christmas Day, 2014, found messages about water safety
were starting to get through to crab fishers in the Chinese community in Auckland, but more needed to be done to avoid more deaths.
Heng Li was 23 when he drowned trying to retrieve a crab pot from choppy water at Northland's Uretiti Beach.
Mr Li was part of a 600-strong group who went to Uretiti over Christmas to enjoy the beach and go crab fishing, which was something of an annual tradition.
In the inquest, Coroner H. B. Shortland noted the deaths of other crab fishers in similar conditions, including another Christmas Day drowning in 2013 and the death in November of a man who drowned at Uretiti when he was blown offshore and tipped from a small inflatable boat while setting pots.
