{"id":392513,"date":"2026-04-22T18:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/392513\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T18:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T18:32:13","slug":"police-name-two-boys-killed-after-kawerau-riverbank-collapse-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/392513\/","title":{"rendered":"Police name two boys killed after Kawerau riverbank collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite the efforts, the boys were found dead.<\/p>\n

Inspector Phil Gillbanks had said police and Fire and Emergency New Zealand staff did everything they could to find the boys in what were perilous circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was extremely tragic and sad, and we feel for the families.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Kawerau rafting operator who tried to help with the rescue said the area was a popular swimming spot for children<\/p>\n

Kawerau Mayor Faylene Tunui sent condolences to the families of the two boys who died, saying the tragedy was every family\u2019s worst nightmare.<\/p>\n

Local kaum\u0101tua have performed karakia and a r\u0101hui has been placed on the Tarawera River.<\/p>\n

Police said the deaths would be referred to the coroner.<\/p>\n

– RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite the efforts, the boys were found dead. Inspector Phil Gillbanks had said police and Fire and Emergency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,1558,1848,17400,42503,6179,305,4881,3375,685,13617,10136,111,43,139,69,5415,675,51408,8229,1237,686,3608],"class_list":{"0":"post-392513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-been","10":"tag-boys","11":"tag-collapse","12":"tag-collapsed","13":"tag-died","14":"tag-have","15":"tag-kawerau","16":"tag-killed","17":"tag-last","18":"tag-name","19":"tag-named","20":"tag-new-zealand","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-playing","25":"tag-police","26":"tag-riverbank","27":"tag-they","28":"tag-two","29":"tag-week","30":"tag-were"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392513","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=392513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}