Northern Deluge: Children swept into drain

By Staff Reporters

Two children were last night fighting for their lives after being sucked into a stormwater drain and elderly folk had to be rescued from flooded rest-homes as torrential rain swept through the top half of the North Island yesterday.

Worst-hit areas appeared to be the Far North, the west coast of Northland and Pukekohe.

Emergency services in Northland rescued scores of people from flooded houses and stranded vehicles as fast-rising waters cut roads and swept away bridges and cars.

At Kaiwaka, north of Wellsford, youngsters raised the alarm around 7 pm when the 12-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl they were playing with vanished.

Both children had been sucked down an enclosed stormwater drain for several hundred metres.

Senior Sergeant Steve Webber said the boy was found distressed at the end of the drain. The girl had to be pulled out from under the water.

She had been submerged for about 20 minutes and was revived by a doctor before the pair were taken to Whangarei Hospital.

Late last night firefighters, ambulance officers and Pukekohe residents joined forces to evacuate three rest-homes and a block of pensioner flats. Some were carried through flood waters a metre deep.

By early this morning, the fast-moving trough which brought the rain had moved south over Auckland, and was forecast to reach the Bay of Plenty this morning.

The Far North deputy mayor, John Klaracich, said the rain was the heaviest he had seen in 67 years of living in the area. A record 210.5mm of rain was recorded near Opononi between 3 pm and 8 pm.

Emergency services in Northland were still checking early this morning to ensure everyone was safe. The coastguard was called out to check on settlements at Panguru on the northern side of Hokianga Harbour and nearby Mitimiti.

A spokesman for the emergency team said nearly 100 people had been rescued and evacuated to marae and hill-top houses.

At Pakanae, near Opononi, four men formed a human chain to rescue two children and their grandfather from a house.

Alan Hessell, who helped rescue the family at Pakanae, said the four men were forced to cross the Pakanae River, which had swollen to 2.5m. He estimated the river was moving at 20 knots, so they tied ropes to one another and one stayed on land to ensure the entire group did not get swept away.

They then forced the children, aged 11 and 17, and their 58-year-old grandfather to tie rope around their waists before pulling them to safety.

Emergency services had been unable to reach the isolated farmhouse because the river had widened from its usual 10m to about 1km.

The Hessell family's car was also swept away in the flood and the pressure of the water forced another car into a caravan.

State Highway 14, the road between Northland's two main centres, Dargaville and Whangarei, was closed by slips, tree falls and surface flooding, but reopened to one lane late last night. State Highway 12 at Whirinaki, 40km west of Kaikohe, was closed by the floods.

Pictured: A house in Pukekohe partially submerged in the floodwaters.