{"id":252298,"date":"2026-01-26T10:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/252298\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T10:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T10:03:11","slug":"police-name-tekanimaeu-arobati-as-man-found-dead-in-mahurangi-river-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/252298\/","title":{"rendered":"Police name Tekanimaeu Arobati as man found dead in Mahurangi River"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

\nA search operation had taken place at Mahurangi River in Warkworth after reports of a man and his car were washed away in floodwaters earlier this week.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Finn Blackwell\n<\/p>\n

Police have named the man who was found dead in the Mahurangi River near Warkworth as Tekanimaeu Arobati, 47, from Kiribati.<\/p>\n

“Our thoughts are with his family and friends during this difficult time, and we are offering support to the family.”<\/p>\n

Police had said earlier on Monday that a body was recovered after a driver was swept away in a car on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Searchers, including whitewater raft teams and drone operators had been scouring the area, as several North Island regions struggled with severe rain, flooding, landslides and storms this week.<\/p>\n

Fire and Emergency earlier said two people had been in the car and attempted to cross a ford through the flooded river when they got into trouble. The passenger was able to escape, and seek help.<\/p>\n

The death has been referred to the Coroner.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A search operation had taken place at Mahurangi River in Warkworth after reports of a man and his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-252298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}