Waterfall jump tragedy

Police remove the body from the scene. Photo / Anna Leask

A teenager's New Year's Day fun turned to tragedy after he jumped from a 24m waterfall and never surfaced.

The 18-year-old was with friends at Wairua Falls, about 30km from Whangarei on Friday.

The group had been at the falls for several hours and jumped from the top into the pool below.

The falls are estimated to be 24m high and the water beneath about 3m deep.

Constable Sue Grocott said three teenagers - two boys and a girl - made the jump successfully, but the fourth teen "misjudged and landed awkwardly". He did not surface.

Grocott did not believe alcohol was a factor. "It was just teenagers having fun," she said.

Emergency services and the teen's family were alerted immediately but efforts to find him were in vain.

Yesterday police divers were called in to locate and retrieve his body.

His family arrived at the scene just before the divers and stood embraced at a viewing platform.

The teen's body was located about half an hour after divers entered the pool, as his family looked on. Divers then took underwater video footage of the scene for the coroner.

His family said through police that they did not want to speak publicly about the tragedy. It is understood relatives live near a 2km shingle track that leads to the falls.

Local kaumatua Hori George Tuhiwai said the waterfall - known by iwi as the Omiru Falls - and pool were sacred to the Te Parawhau iwi. They were not a popular swimming or jumping spot.

"The locals don't use it ... we don't even swim in it," he said. "She's dangerous.

"This is the first death in modern times that we have heard of.

"It's sad that the poor fellow was in there all night."

Tuhiwai said there were many caves and crevices beneath the surface of the pool and along the river that flows from it.

"The Wairua River is a spiritual river to our people. In the old days enemies used to chase our people here in waka.

"We dug trenches to the side of the river and when the enemy chased us we would hide in those trenches.

"There is a rock in the middle of the pool and when their canoes would go over the falls and hit that rock it smashed them and killed them. Then we would go and finish them off."

Tuhiwai put a seven-day rahui on the site.