heavy rain was forecast that afternoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Coroner](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JPD4CE_PD300426HO2_JPG.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nCoroner Alexander Ho.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Peter de Graaf\n<\/p>\n
He said it was only when the group passed an area called The Rockfall and got close to the exit that the water started rising with alarming speed.<\/p>\n
He described the water as going from knee deep to neck deep in a period of, at most, two minutes – but possibly as little as 30 seconds.<\/p>\n
The teacher told the court he still could not understand why the water rose so quickly, and said he had not seen anything like it in all his years of caving.<\/p>\n
He had thought about it often and wondered whether part of the cave had been blocked by debris, or if a blockage upstream had suddenly burst.<\/p>\n
“It almost came in like a wave, which is not what caves do \u2026 That’s still a mystery to me.”<\/p>\n
Ellie Harrison, lawyer for the family of Karnin Petera, the 15-year-old who died, quizzed the teacher about why he did not consider staying in the upper passage.<\/p>\n
The teacher said he had hopped into the water to check the level in the main passage and found it was only knee-deep.<\/p>\n
Had the flash flood hit minutes earlier, they would have stayed in the upper passage, he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Brother](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPCYVH_PD300426KARNIN_JPG.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nBrother Jordan and parents Alicia Toki and Andre Petera with a photo of Karnin “Tino” Petera outside the Whang\u0101rei Courthouse.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Peter de Graaf\n<\/p>\n
Harrison also asked about the group’s lack of emergency communication.<\/p>\n
She said Karnin’s father, Andre Petera, had called the school twice to raise concerns about flooding in Whang\u0101rei city, but the receptionist had “brushed him off”.<\/p>\n
Even if the receptionist had tried to pass on those concerns, there was no way of contacting the group because there was no cellphone coverage beyond the Abbey Caves car park.<\/p>\n
The lack of another form of communication had also caused a delay in raising the alarm, with some of the boys having to run to a nearby house to call 111, she said.<\/p>\n
However, the teacher said having a satellite phone would have made little difference, because it was only a short distance uphill to reach cellphone coverage.<\/p>\n
In any case, he would not have had a chance to make a satellite call because he was still inside the cave rescuing students when the alarm was raised.<\/p>\n
The second adult on the trip would to start giving his evidence this afternoon.<\/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":"Karnin Petera died in the flash flood. Photo: SUPPLIED A teacher on a fatal school caving trip says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-412335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412335","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=412335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Karnin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4LCB93P_SUP260924KARNIN2b_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n